RWBY: Republic Commando
by Heil96
Summary: RWBY: Republic Commando is an AU fic where Teams RWBY and JNPR are Republic Commando squads fighting in the clone wars, and have to learn to adapt to a war they had no choice in fighting.
1. Chapter 1

Ruby was nervous. No, anxious. Standing in the dropship, her left hand hooked onto a support strap above her, she looked out the dropships left side at this strange planet. She wasn't afraid of the battle to come, she was ready for it. She just wanted to be on the ground already. Her team had been in the dropship for roughly ten minutes now, zooming over the red surface of Geonosis. As if on cue, she heard their pilot come onto the comlink feed.

"We are five minutes out." He stated calmly, alerting the team to make sure their gear was in order. "Looks like the DZ could be pretty hot too." That wasn't good. "How hot?" Ruby inquired. "Nothing you can't handle Eight-Three."

That gave her frustratingly little to work with. Ruby allowed herself to look over her team, her family. There was RC-1104, nicknamed Weiss, clad in her white armor with red trim, sitting calmly on her bucket seat, inspecting her DC-17 blaster rifle. Weiss was the team's resident slicer, and was also a damn fine field medic. Next to Weiss sat RC-1170, who had chosen the nickname of Blake. Blake was the squad's sharpshooter, and her armor was almost completely black except for a few violet stripes that ran down the sides of her legs and the front of the helmet, outlining the t-shaped visor. Blake was a fantastic shot, and lived for the hunt. She didn't like to talk that much however, which had led to some issues for the team whenever it had first been created. Across from Blake stood RC-1126, nicknamed Yang. Yang was covered in a black and yellow color scheme, and was the squad's demolition expert. Where Blake preferred quiet, Yang would never shut up, which concerned Ruby, as Yang was being very quiet. Suspiciously quiet.

The cause of her brevity was revealed as loud rock music played over the team's secure comlink suddenly, and Yang's helmet perked up. Ruby could picture the shit-eating grin that lay behind her scorch marked helmet.

 _Fuck, Weiss is gonna flip._ Ruby thought, as Weiss was a stickler for rules and regulations, and playing music over a comm channel was very much against regulations.

"Mind turning that shit off?" Weiss barked at Yang. "What's the matter Four? Don't like my taste in music?" Yang asked in a mockingly insulted tone. "We both know that playing personal music over a comm feed, especially in a combat situation, breaks various regulations, namely Rule 23b, subsection Alph-." Weiss started to shoot back, before Yang interjected. "But breaking rules makes it more fun Weissy!" "I believe operative Oh-Four is correct, Yang." Blake added her opinion to the rapidly deteriorating conversation. "Oh so now you're against me too Blake?! I've been betrayed by my own teammates! I should have kno-." "Alright guys, lets calm it down. Weiss, I don't think anyone will reprimand us for playing some music. Yang, cut the music when we're one minute out. Got it?" Ruby jumped into the conversation, setting the team straight. Both Weiss and Yang nodded their agreement, while Weiss stared at Yang for a few seconds more before going back through her gear.

 _Come on Weiss, let it go. We don't need to have this happen again._ Ruby said to herself, memories of fierce arguments resurfacing, caused by Yang's cavalier attitude clashing with Weiss' by the books mentality. Blake tended to stay out of the fights, leaving it to Ruby to solve the disagreements alone. RC-1183 looked back out at the blurry landscape, clad in black armor, covered in various red patterns, and her custom made rose emblem emblazoned upon her right thigh. The team's leader began to prepare herself for the coming battle. _This isn't training anymore, these girls are relying on you. Get it done._ The words echoing in her mind were very similar to ones spoken by her training sergeant, after she had expressed her doubts in being promoted to team lead. She had never been truly comfortable with the position, believing that the other girls would have been better leaders, but her Sergeant had assured her that he had made the right choice in promoting her, and that she would _"do a fantastic job, because if you fail your entire team is fucked."_ While obscene, the Sergeant's words had gotten the job done. Ruby would not fail her team, because the stakes were simply too high.

"One minute out." Their pilot relayed, and Yang, true to her word, cut Red like Roses short mid guitar solo. The girls began to prep for their drop, getting the fast ropes ready. Ruby and Weiss got set up on the left side of the gunship, while Blake and Yang stacked up on the right. Flak began buffeting the ship, and a nearby gunship was hit, going down hard to the red sand and dirt.

"Fuck, anyone know which bird that was?" Yang asked, and everyone shook their head. Hopefully they had made it out, but the ship had hit the ground hard, too hard. No one could have survived the blast that followed. "Wasn't us. That's what matters." Blake added with her characteristic dark demeanor. "You are just a ray of sunshine Seventy, you know that?" Blake didn't reply to Yang's barb, merely looking over the landscape.

"Five seconds!" The pilot barked out, with some urgency in his voice. Clearly he didn't relish the thought of sticking around with this much anti-air fire attacking them. Ruby didn't blame him.

"Okay team go go go!" Ruby ordered, as the team began their fast rope descent to the surface. As soon as they were on the ground Ruby informed the pilot. "We are boots on ground, I repeat, we are boots on ground." "Good luck down there." The pilot responded before flying off.

The DZ was indeed hot, as blaster fire assaulted the team, crimson lasers flying past them as they dove for cover. "It would appear that the enemy is aware of our position." Weiss deadpanned, crouching next to Ruby behind a rock that was for now, the only thing between them and the enemy.

"Right, return fire! Blake and Yang, draw their fire, while we take them out!" Wordlessly the two commandos carried out their leader's orders, rapidly dashing from cover to cover as the battle droids focused their fire on them. Ruby counted ten battle droids atop a ridge, peppering the team with fire. As soon as their fire shifted to Blake and Yang, Weiss and Ruby popped up, and began taking out their opponents. The droids were no match for their precise shooting, and soon their little slice of the battlefield fell silent, but the sounds of war could still be heard nearby. The squad regrouped at Blake and Yang's position, reloading while their leader opened up her comlink.

"Advisor this is RWBY-Actual, we are on the ground and have eliminated enemy forces. Requesting orders." "Actual this is your advisor, you have been tasked with eliminating nearby enemy anti-air positions. Your HUD has been updated with the guns locations. Get on it Actual."

"Eliminating guns huh? Sounds like the need for some high explosives, if you ask me." Yang stated as the squad began their approach to the guns. "Every situation would be solved by high explosives if we asked you." Weiss replied, taking the rear of the team. "You say that like it's an issue." "Just make sure you don't over pack the ordnance this time, ok?" "One time I mess up Weiss. One time!" Yang shot back indignantly. Ruby, at the front of the team, raised one fist, causing the discussion to stop, as the team halted behind her.

"Problem boss?" Weiss asked, clearly getting anxious being out in the open of the canyon. "We've got movement up ahead. Get set." Ruby then moved forward, turning a corner, spotting a group of five Geonosian warriors. "Drop 'em" Ruby ordered, as blasts of plasma shot out from the team's location towards the warriors, killing three immediately. The fourth began to charge the team, but was killed by a well-placed shot to the head, courtesy of Blake. The fifth leapt at Ruby, attempting to gore her with his staff. Ruby dropped her blaster as she sidestepped the strike, grabbing the staff with her right hand and pulling the warrior towards her. The warrior stumbled forward, off-balance, as Ruby deployed the vibroblade housed in her left knuckle gauntlet, and rammed it into the warrior's throat. Twisting the blade, she yanked it out, allowing the body to drop unceremoniously to the ground, gurgling softly. Ruby bent down to pick up her rifle, while motioning the squad forward.

"Let's move like we've got a purpose here team!" Ruby ordered. "The longer we take, the more of our ships are gonna go down." "Roger, moving forward." Blake responded, taking point for the team. The team moved forward wordlessly, picking up the pace as they realized that Ruby's words were true. The sounds of war grew closer, more specifically, the sound of Trade Federation anti-air guns firing their salvos. Cautiously, Blake looked around the corner of the canyon wall, observing the area in front of her. There a door built into the canyon wall, and it looked like the complex beyond the door led into the main facility, where Team RWBY would wreak havoc upon the Trade Fed war machine.

Unfortunately entering the complex would be harder than the team had originally thought, as the door was protected by what seemed to be a hard-light barrier. The door was guarded by roughly a dozen battle droids, with a complement force of two Super Battle Droids. The SBD's would be a tougher nut to crack, but not impossible. The squad had prepared for this.

"What have you got for me Seventy?" Ruby inquired, as Blake was still the only one with eyes-on the target. "About twelve battle droids, and two supers." "Alright team, we'll play this by the books. Yang, I need you to toss an ECM det in-between the supers, Blake, I need you to attack the supers as well, focus fire on the one on the left. Target its weak spots. Weiss, you and I will take out the battle droids. Use a thermal detonator to thin the herd. We good?" Three helmets nodded in unison. _Alright, no time like the present._ "Let's move!" Yang sprang into action, vaulting over a wall while simultaneously prepping an ECM detonator in her hand. She landed behind a rock, throwing the ECM det in-between the supers, arcs of lightning assaulting the droids as the detonator went off, disrupting the supers and buying her team time. As soon as Yang made her move Blake was right behind her, slapping the sniper attachment onto her DC-17 rifle. The beautiful thing about the "Deece," as it was affectionately called by the troops using it. She began attacking the super on the left, shooting at its shoulder joints to knock its arm off, rendering it useless. While Blake and Weiss were dealing with the supers, Weiss and Ruby dashed to cover, Weiss hurling a thermal detonator at the group of battle droids. Ruby began spraying the droids down with burst fire from her rifle, dropping the droid effectively, as the detonator blew up in the middle of the group, taking out five of the droids instantly. Weiss also began shooting at the droids, working from the left of the group, as Ruby was working from the right. Within seconds the droids were all down, and Ruby looked to her other teammates to see how their situation was progressing, and was pleased with the results. The first super was down due to Blake's precision shooting. Yang had joined in with her Deece, attacking the remaining super. The super fell, succumbing to the withering fire of the two combined commandos. The battlefield fell silent, save for the sounds of the anti-air guns.

"Alright team, good work. Now let's get to work on this door." Ruby was startled to hear a burst of plasma fire behind her. She quickly turned, only to see Yang standing over one of the supers, her head cocked to the side, holding her blaster out with just her right hand, finger still on the trigger. Smoke began to rise from the newly born hole in the back of the super's cognitive unit. "Making a mess Yang?" Weiss asked, turning around and facing the anti-air complex. "Rule 17 Princess. Always make sure they're dead." "It looks dead to me." "It is now."

Ruby smiled to herself, allowing the bickering to die down on its own. Now she had a new problem. How was she supposed to get through this barrier?


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hey guys, I didn't put a note in the last chapter because I had a dumb moment, so I'm making sure to address everything in this one! This is, as you probably figured out by now, a crossover between RWBY and Republic Commando. I, being a simple nerd, own neither. This chapter is really long, but you shouldn't expect this size of chapter again. I just wanted to hurry up and meet JNPR, and also didn't feel like splitting this chapter up. I will put a note at the start of every chapter that will have the serial numbers of every Commando that is relevant in the chapter. Any fans of either the RC games or books may notice some similarities. While I plan on drawing some similarities between this and the books, mainly, I will not be simply rewriting everything Karen Traviss has done with the characters of RWBY. That would be stupid and no fun. Also I have yet to even think of a release schedule for this, but I should be putting them out once a week, maybe twice if I can find the time. That's all I've got for now, and if you have any comments, concerns, or general feedback, don't hesitate to write me a review! I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Thanks for reading!**

 **RC-1183 Ruby**

 **RC-1104 Weiss**

 **RC-1170 Blake**

 **RC-1126 Yang**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96 out.**

* * *

Ruby was growing impatient. "How's it coming Four?" She asked, though she knew the answer already. "Working as fast as I can here Sarge." Weiss replied, not even looking up from the terminal she was busy working on. Weiss was currently slicing her way through a terminal they had found near the hard-light barrier covering the door, their only way inside the base, and unless they wanted to blow through solid rock, the terminal was their only option.

Weiss had been working for over two minutes now. Ruby could feel the dull vibrations of the anti-air guns firing pulsing through her body, every shot a reminder of how important their objective was, and what failure would mean not only for them, but for everyone else trying to fly through the chaotic warzone. No pressure. While Weiss was working, her three teammates had established a defensive position, covering the entrance to the canyon. Blake had her sniper attachment equipped, aimed down the sights at the entrance, while Ruby and Yang kept their blasters in standard rifle form. It helped to be versatile. But strangely enough, no enemies had come after them.

"I'm telling you, we could just try and blast through. Even if we don't have the explosives for it, we could call in an airstrike to get it open." Yang commented, trying to keep herself entertained. "Sure, call an airstrike onto fully functioning anti-air guns. No go ahead, call it in. I bet the pilot would have some choice words for you." Weiss shot back, reminding the demolitions expert of their objective. "We wouldn't even be having this conversation if you could just get the fucking door open." "You want to do this and let me stand there doing nothing but staring at a blank canyon wall? Hmm? No? Then shut up and let me do my fucking job." Yang started to respond, Ruby could hear her taking breath, formulating her response, when Ruby decided to step in. "Shut it you two. I don't need you distracting her Yang. And besides, I would like to maintain some sense of stealth in the complex, which would be hard to do while blowing a hole in the front door." Yang took the hint, but didn't shut up, just directing her thought process elsewhere. "Yeah, stealthy. I bet you we lose stealth within two minutes of being inside there." "What would you bet? We don't get paid?" Blake responded, surprising Ruby. "I'll bet you one ammo clip that we don't make it two minutes in there before having our cover blown." "Betting ammo seems a little lame…" "What else am I supposed to bet, a fucking rock? I bet you the shiniest goddamn rock I can find-."

"Finished." Weiss stated, as the barrier dissipated, and the door opened. Immediately all conversation was stopped, as the team began moving inside the complex. Weiss took point, Yang covering the team's six. The complex was carved out of the rock, as the walls were solid stone. The floors were metal though, and lighting ran across the roof in the form of strip lights.

"Real cozy place, not creepy at all." Yang murmured to herself, seemingly off put by the way the shadows danced on the walls every time the base shook due to the guns firing.

"Advisor this is RWBY Actual, we are inside the base. Requesting orders, over." "Actual this is your advisor, your first target will be the guns target acquisition matrix. Take it out, then proceed to its ammo belts. Destroy those, and then make your way to the guns central power generator, which will need to be eliminated. Be aware, destroying the generator will most likely bring down the whole place, so get ready to book it. Advisor, out."

"If taking out the generator would bring the whole place down, why not do that first? Skip the other objectives." Yang asked to no one in particular. "Because the generator is on the other side of the building, and the other objectives are in between the generator and us." Ruby responded, taking note of building schematics Weiss had downloaded earlier. The team began moving forward, the targeting matrix was only 100 meters out. _Perfect._

Team RWBY was silently walking down the halls, their leader noting that the sound of the guns seemed to be getting louder, which she figured was a good sign, when a pair of battle droids rounded the corner on patrol.

"Enemy spott-." Was all the first droid could say as a shot from Yang took the droids head clean off its shoulder mount, while Blake dropped the other droid. Not fast enough it seemed, as the sound of metal footsteps could be heard running towards them from further down the hallway.

"Team grab cover! Enemy contact!" Ruby barked out, ducking next to a wall and readying her rifle, all the while noticing that Blake had wordlessly grabbed a clip and tossed it to Yang before grabbing over opposite from Ruby so they had established cross fire on the droids. Yang almost didn't catch the magazine, seemingly shocked that Blake had even gone along with the bet. _Someone's in a good mood._ Ruby mused, aiming down her sights as a group of battle droids rounded the corner and immediately got torn apart by four streams of blue plasma fire. With the threat eliminated, the team moved forward, Ruby noticing a spring in Blake's step. _Definitely in a good mood._ Ruby couldn't, and didn't blame her. She knew how Blake felt, and all the impatience and anxiousness Ruby had felt earlier had melted away, replaced by confidence, and satisfaction. _This is what we trained for, and we're finally getting to put it all to use._ Her heart was pumping, she felt great, despite the fact that they were in enemy territory and had so far only been stirring the hornets' nest. _Can't stress the little things, like how many enemy droids are en route to our position._ Team RWBY closed in on their objective, ready to do some damage to the enemy war machine.

Team RWBY came to a sealed door, and by the looks of the building schematics and the distance from target displayed at the bottom of her HUD. The call was now Ruby's to make as to whether or not the team should try for a stealthy entry. While pondering the benefits of either tactical decision, she noticed that the rock walls that had been prevalent were being replaced by a dull metal surface. "Boss? What's the call here?" Weiss inquired, snapping Ruby out of her momentary distracted thoughts. "Well, I don't think that the stealthy approach is still available to us. Stack up." The squad stacked up on the door for a breaching maneuver, Blake and Weiss on the door's left side, with Ruby on the right, Yang set to plant the breaching charge on the door, before joining Ruby on her side.

"Setting charge, clear!"

The door locking mechanism was instantly shattered as the charge detonated, Weiss tossing in a thermal detonator to thin out the enemy forces, and as Ruby looked into the room, she was glad she had decided to forgo the stealthy tactic. Red laser fire began bombarding the teams position, forcing Ruby to duck her head back behind cover as bits of the doorway began melting away where her helmet had been just moments before.

"Motherfucker!" She exclaimed, trying to figure out a way through the current situation. "Yang, Weiss, slap on your anti-armor attachments! Blake, I need you to throw in an ECM grenade! Then we enter the room hard! On my mark team!" She paused, allowing them to make the necessary preparations. Seeing that her team was ready, she prepared herself for the coming moments.

"Mark!"

The DC-17 anti-armor attachment is a grenade launcher that launches high explosive grenades at the enemy target. The grenade was designed to blow through enemy armor, but did massive damage against enemy infantry. Two of these grenades were now hurtling towards the battle droids, their arc, and as a result, their blast radius overlapping to maximize the damage output. Right behind the two grenades was an ECM grenade, shorting out the battle droids functions. While the ECM would only stun a super battle droid, they completely destroyed normal battle droids. The team entered the room, grabbing any cover they could find.

With the droids forces significantly lower than a few moments earlier, the team cleared out the rest of the room. Weiss began making her way towards the targeting matrix terminal, attaching her rifle to her hip as she got closer to the computer. While this was happening, Blake took cover and aimed her rifle down the long corridor that would lead them to their next objective. Yang turned towards her leader, cocking her head as she looked her over.

"Not a bad call there Sarge. Though now that I think about it," Yang said as she surveyed the remains of the droids around her "two anti-armor rounds may have been overkill."

"Yeah well, there's no such thing as overkill if it gets the job done." Ruby shrugged, turning towards Weiss. "Hey Four. How long would it take you to seriously mess up these guns targeting?"

"No idea boss. Could be ten seconds, could be ten minutes." Weiss replied taking her hands off the console, awaiting her leader's decision.

"Sorry Weiss, but we don't have the time for that. Yang, take it out." Ruby decided, both her and Weiss backing away from the terminal to allow Yang to work. Yang started placing the charge on the terminal, while muttering to herself "now was it red green red, or red green green? Can't ever remember this shit."

Weiss began backing away slowly, never taking her eyes off of Yang. "She's joking right? Ruby, tell me she's just joking!"

"Relax Weiss, if she fucks up, you won't even feel it." Blake responded, not a trace of humor evident in her tone. _Yeah, she's in a good mood alright._ "Not funny Blake!"

"Take it easy Weiss, I finished. You've got the det chief." Yang said, walking towards the group, casually walking away from the demolition charge. "Alright team, get clear!" Ruby said, holding the detonator in her hand, and squeezing the trigger.

Ruby hadn't been looking at the explosion, but her visor dimmed itself automatically to protect her eyes. Her helmet deafened the noise, but nothing could dampen the shockwave that hit her, knocking her off her feet.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT YANG?!" Weiss yelled, stumbling to her feet.

"Must have packed that one with a bit too much of the good stuff." Yang said, rising unsteadily. The terminal had completely disappeared, replaced by a large scorch mark. Yang had clearly used too much of the _good stuff_ in that charge. "No such thing as overkill, huh boss?"

Ruby helped Blake up to a standing position, shaking her head to clear it. "I thought we had talked about over packing charges Yang." "Yeah well that was the only one. Promise."

"Okay guys, let's keep moving forward. We need to get to the ammunition belts quickly so we can do some more damage here." Ruby commanded, taking point as she started walking down the corridor, when the lights flickered, and then went out.

"Way to go Yang." Weiss griped as she switched her visor to low-light mode. "How was that even my fault?!" Yang replied defensively. "I don't know, but that was completely your fault." Blake just shook her head wordlessly, brushing past the arguing duo.

The team made their way to the ammunition feed, which was essentially a large belt being fed up into the ceiling, which is where the guns were. The room it was housed in was two stories tall, with a catwalk wrapping around the belt. Strangely, the room was deserted.

"Alright, Yang, start placing a charge on the belt. We'll keep you covered." Yang moved silently to the ammo feed, and began setting the bomb, her teammates keeping her cover.

"I don't like this…" Weiss said uneasily, gripping her rifle tightly. Ruby nodded her agreement, but didn't say anything more, trying to stay strong for the sake of her team. _This isn't right. They know we're here, they sounded the alarm, so where are all the droids?_

Ruby's musings were cut short by the sound of an elevator being accessed at the far end of the room. Three rifles turned and pointed at the elevator door, while Yang continued her work. "I'm done here Ruby." She said, taking cover by her team, and training her gun on the elevator. Ruby began to sweat underneath her armor, despite it being automatically cooled. Something was very, very wrong.

The elevator doors opened revealing a large droid, with four legs and a large cannon pointing out of the front end. Pointing at the commandos.

"Move! Now!" Ruby yelled, as she sprinted for different cover, trying to keep her team spread out. "Anti-armor on the double team!" She began to modify her weapon, as the Spider Droid's cannon began to warm up. And pointed directly at Weiss.

Before Ruby could even scream at her to move, the cannon had fired, and Weiss had dodged out of the way, avoiding the firepower of the droid. The wall behind her had not been so fortunate, and had a large, smoking hole in the middle of it. The commando's armor would be useless against the droids weaponry, as even a grazing hit could prove fatal. The droids weapon had begun to heat back up, but the commandos were ready to fight back. Three grenades sailed towards the droid, while Ruby threw an ECM grenade at the droid, hoping to destroy its optics.

When the grenade went off, the droid remained standing, but was stunned, and was forced to take the full brunt of the girl's firepower. The droid stood strong until the fourth volley finally took it out, the droid exploding as it toppled on its side. "That wasn't so bad." The team's leader said with a sigh of relief, Spider Droid's were a notoriously hard nut to crack.

"Yeah, but it took all my anti-armor to do it." Weiss replied, setting her Deece back to rifle form. "Yeah, I'm out too boss." Yang added, checking her gear over to make sure she was unscathed. "One left for me. You?" Blake asked, while walking near Ruby. "I have two, so I'm willing to share, but let's hope it doesn't come to that."

Ruby began to walk towards the teams next objective, but couldn't shake the feeling she was forgetting something.

"Uh boss, the charge?" Yang asked, head cocked, looking at Ruby with one finger pointed at the still armed bomb on the ammo belt. _Oh. Right._

"Right, uh, fire in the hole." Ruby said lamely, pushing her thumb down on the trigger, blasting the ammo belt. Thankfully Yang hadn't over packed this one, and no one got knocked off their feet. Now free to resume her prior intent, Ruby set forth for the main reactor, ready to destroy the facility.

The walk to the reactor was long, and filled with enemies. But as Ruby had noticed, it was filled with less enemies than she had expected. _Maybe they didn't think this facility was as high priority as other objectives? Maybe the droids got relocated elsewhere?_ A thought entered Ruby's head, running a chill up her spine. _Maybe they're all waiting for us, in the reactor room._

Pushing the thought down, deep down, Ruby continued forward, and approached the door that would lead to the team's final objective. Pausing before the door, Ruby turned around and addressed her team.

"Alright guys, lets run inventory before we go in there. We have no idea what's on the other side, and I'd like to at least know how much damage we can do. Yang, you're up."

"Alright, I've got three and a half clips left for my Deece, four for my sniper attachment, out of anti-armor as you already know, two thermal dets, three ECM's, and full set of flashbangs."

Weiss went next, checking herself over. "Four clips for my DC-17, three for the sniper, out of anti-armor, full set of thermals, two ECM's, full up on flashbangs."

Ruby shook her head at the uselessness of flashbang grenades against droid targets, and nodded at Blake prompting her to begin.

"Three DC-17, two sniper, one anti-armor, three thermal, three ECM, full flash." Blake's curtness in her response caused Yang to shake her head in disappointment, full of disbelief that someone could actually talk that little.

"Alright, Yang, take one of my anti-armor rounds. Give Blake a sniper clip too, I want her full just in case."

Yang nodded her head and as the rest of her team completed their equipment swap, Weiss walked up to the terminal by the door. "How are we doing this one Ruby?" She asked with her head cocked, looking at the terminal. "Sorry Weiss, but I don't see the point of going in quiet. I'd like to do as much damage as fast as possible." Weiss just shrugged, taking up her position at the door, waiting to breach.

Ruby crouched down in position, giving Yang optimal firing lanes if she needed them, instead of worrying about taking her leaders head off. Yang stood in front of the door, tossing the breaching charge up and down in her hand, looking to make sure her team was set, before she began to set the charge. She immediately ran and stood behind Ruby, as the charge began to tick down. Ruby's heart rate began to pick up, ready for more action. _Let's rock_. She thought, as the door slid open with a dull _Whump_.

Weiss immediately threw an ECM into the room, hoping to stun as many target as possible. As soon as the det went off, Ruby and Weiss were running into the room while staying low to the ground while Yang and Blake kept them cover from the doorway. As soon as Ruby and Weiss were set up, they began firing at the droids to allow Yang and Blake to enter the room. Ruby counted two dozen battle droids, and three supers. Five of the normal droids had been killed by Weiss's ECM detonator, but none of the supers had been hit unfortunately.

"Focus the SBD's. Yang, anti-armor, hit as many as you can!" The team was moving from cover to cover, their objective behind all the droids. The team was taking out as many of the droids as they could, but the supers were the real issue. Yang's anti-armor round impacted the droids, killing five of the battle droids, and blowing the legs off a super. Blake's sniper rounds hitting the remaining supers over and over again, eventually toppling one of the droids. The rest of the team was lined up now, hosing down the last SBD with plasma fire. It collapsed, and fell backwards, dead on the ground. The team quickly cleaned up the rest of the battle droids with a couple well placed thermal detonators and plasma fire. The team seemed to let out a collective breath, happy to have made it out unscathed.

Ruby began to move forward, Blake by her side. "Alright Yang, set the charge and let's get ready to move." As they moved up, Ruby heard the unmistakable sound of a laser being primed to fire. In what felt like slow motion, she saw the first SBD, missing its legs, propped up by one arm, with the other arm aimed in Ruby's direction. The mounted laser on its arm began to glow red, before discharging two shots. The shots seemed to travel as if through water, as they went towards Ruby, then they passed her. And impacted into Blake's chest.

Blake fell wordlessly, and Ruby could see two bright blue streams of plasma erupt from Weiss and Yang's rifle, finishing off the SBD. Blake hit the ground hard, her rifle dropping by her side, and Ruby was there, checking if she was alive.

"Blake, talk to me!" _This is my fault, I should've know to make sure it was dead, it's rule 17 for fucks sake, nononono Blake don't be dead!_

As Ruby began to take Blake's helmet off, Blake suddenly lurched over and rolled onto her left side, taking a deep, shaky breath. Weiss was there too, next to Ruby, checking on her teammate, Ruby didn't know where Yang was, that didn't matter, all that mattered was that Blake was alive.

"I'm good. I'm good." Blake said, taking another breath, as if checking to make sure she could. "Just got the wind knocked out of me."

Ruby choked back a sob, still in shock as to what had happened. Weiss gently grabbed Blake's shoulder, putting her on her back, examining the sniper's chest plate.

"Well it looks like the armor did its job just fine Blake. You sure you're alright?" Blake nodded, taking Ruby's offered hand, and getting back on her feet. A loud metallic crunch sounded behind them, and Ruby whirled around, only to see Yang with her boot in the back of one of the SBD's cognitive unit. Judging by the sizable holes in the other SBD's, this wasn't her first time doing so. Ruby chuckled, before getting Yang's attention.

"When you're done Two-Six, I'd like to finish this mission." Yang walked towards the reactor, a demolition charge in one hand, with the other forming a one-fingered salute towards her leader. While Yang was setting the charge, her squad began moving towards the exit. If their advisor had been right, this would be a hell of a bang.

"We're all set Rubes." Yang said while joining her team by the door, Weiss opening it via terminal. The door opened, and the team, made their way through to the exit, stepping outside into the Geonosian sun. Ruby had forgotten just how bleak and red this planet was. She turned away from the building, as did two of her teammates. "Fire in the hole team!" She said, activating the detonator. The complex exploded, but Ruby didn't see it. She felt it, and that was enough. Apparently that wasn't enough for everyone, as she looked to her right and saw Yang staring at the crater that slightly resembled an anti-air complex. "You alright?" Weiss said, giving Yang a playful nudge on the shoulder. "That was beautiful." Yang sighed, chuckling at Weiss's good mood. Ruby turned away from the team, ready to call it a day.

"Advisor this is RWBY-Actual, anti-air has been eliminated and we are ready for dust-off." "Negative Eight-Three, you have a new objective." The advisor replied, cutting short the playful mood. "What is it sir?" "Team JNPR is in deep and needs an assist, and you're the closest ones to them. I'm sending their coordinates to you now. Make sure you hurry. Advisor out."

Ruby looked at her team, giving them a slight nod before running forward. There was work to be done.


	3. Chapter 3- The Gang's all Here

**A/N: Hey guys, in this chapter, we get to meet JNPR, and see the world through Jaune's eyes. I hope you guys enjoy the chapter, and I'll have a bit more to say at the end of the chapter. See ya there!**

* * *

Jaune was having a bad day. His LAAT dropship had been shot down by anti-air fire on the way to his objective, so he and his team had to run through two kilometers of enemy territory to get to where they were supposed to have been dropped in the first place. He was supposed to have support from a nearby platoon of troopers, but none of them had made it to the objective. Apparently they had been ambushed by a swarm of Geonosians. He had to cut the comlink feed off so their screams wouldn't distract his team. Speaking of his team, they were currently stuck at what seemed to be a dead end, low on ammo, and with a seemingly endless stream of droids coming down a corridor towards Team JNPR, hell-bent on removing the clone squadron from their current position. JNPR's objective had been simple enough, they were tasked with downloading some codes from a droid factory that would help Republic Command analyze any weaknesses in the droid battle plans. The problem with assaulting a droid factory is that it housed a seemingly endless amount of the mechanical warriors. The squad had been ambushed, and was now holding out in a room with only one way in, while Ren tried to open a door.

"How's that door coming Ren?!" Jaune yelled, beginning to feel panic and desperation set in his mind. The door was too reinforced to be open with a simple breaching charge, and the room was too small for the door to be opened with a demolitions charge, the resulting blast would kill the commandos.

"I'm working as fast I can here Sarge!" Ren replied, his hands a flurry across the terminal's interface. _He didn't give me a time. He always gives me a time. We're fucked._

Jaune, Pyrrha, and Nora were at the doorframe that led to the corridor, returning fire as best as they could. They were only buying time, and they were running out of ammo fast. Jaune didn't know the exact amounts of bullets his team had, but he knew Ren only had one clip, having given the rest to his team as they currently needed it more than him.

"Last grenade going out!" Nora yelled, hurling the last thermal detonator the team possessed at the encroaching wave of enemies. The grenade took out at least ten, but the next wave merely marched over the remains of their fallen comrades, no remorse, and no hesitation. Nora crouched back down, avoiding a volley of laser fire. She looked at her leader, her shoulders crestfallen, a posture the typically bubbly demolitions expert didn't usually possess. "Sorry Jaune, only got one mag left."

Jaune simply nodded, he knew this was going to happen. _I just hope that Ren doesn't blame himself, this is my fault. Should never have led us down here, shouldn't have gotten us cornered. I've failed._

Jaune looked at his own ammo, noting that he was loading his last clip into his Deece. He looked to the commando standing by him, by his side the way she always had been. Pyrrha just nodded at him, confirming his fears. She was almost out. The sniper had already exhausted all her ammo and every clip that the squad gave her. _She never missed though, and she'll be by my side, just like she always has been._ Jaune had accepted his death by now, and was prepared to say goodbye to his three best friends, thanking them for all the times they had his back, when a new voice entered his comlink channel.

"This is Team RWBY leader 1183, on the way to assist you JNPR. Just hang on!"

A smile crept to Jaune's face, as he realized there was a light at the end of the tunnel. _RWBY was coming. We might actually live through this hell._ RWBY had been JNPR's friends back on Kamino, and Jaune wouldn't trust any other team to save his life more than RWBY. A new burst of strength coursed through his veins, inspiring him to keep going. He could see it in his team too, with Ren leaving the terminal and joining Nora, helping keep the droids at bay. _I guess the door wasn't going to open._

Jaune could hear the sound of friendly rifles going off in the distance, and knew that it was their salvation. He was surprised when Yang sprinted around the corner, shoulder charging a droid into a wall, the droid coming to pieces. The rest of her team turned the corner, barely firing any shots, using mostly melee tactics on the remaining droids. He watched Weiss sweep the legs out from beneath a droid, as Yang stomped its head down out of the air. Blake and Ruby were going from droid to droid with their vibroblades out, cutting them down. Jaune didn't know how they managed to look graceful while suited in heavy armor, but they pulled it off. When the final droid fell, all of Team JNPR had stood to greet their saviors.

"Team RWBY reporting for duty, Jaune." Ruby said, touching her fingers to her helmet in an impromptu salute.

"Thanks for the assist there. But besides trying to show off, is there a reason you didn't just shoot the droids?" Jaune responded, grateful to even be breathing.

"We're tapped out on ammo here. Got any to share between friends?" Yang asked, kicking over one of the droids.

Jaune's heart sunk when he heard that. They had been able to make it so far, but attempting an assault on a droid factory with no ammo was suicidal. They'd be better off shooting themselves where they stood. "No, we're all on our last mags here. I guess we'll be back where we were when the droids show up again." He said, gesturing to behind where RWBY had just came from.

"We sealed the doors, they won't be bothering us for a while." Blake said, surprising Jaune. He didn't think he'd ever heard the sniper say anything besides "yes sir, no sir." He noticed that her normally clean armor had been adorned with two scorch marks on her chest. _I guess we aren't the only ones to have run into trouble. We're fucked if we can't get ammo though._

"Advisor this is JNPR-Actual, we have rendezvoused with Team RWBY, but are low on ammo. How copy?" "This is your advisor, I can call in a supply drop, but you'll have to make your way outside."

"Why don't they just blast a hole in the wall for us?" Nora asked, head tilted as she concentrated on creating a solution. _That's actually not a bad idea…_

"Advisor, would you be able to open up a wall for us so we can get outside? Our only other ways are filled with hostile, over."

There was a moment of pause, and Jaune began to fear that he would be told that he was out of luck.

"Roger that, gunship Harken is inbound with a fire mission and resupply. Advisor out."

With the gunship on the way, the two squads began to mill around, chatting anxiously to pass the time. Jaune overheard Yang telling Nora about "this fantastic explosion we caused, I mean 10/10, Nora, you should have fucking seen it." He chuckled moving past them. Pyrrha and Weiss were talking about RWBY's mission, and Blake and Ren were being their typical anti-social selves. Jaune walked up to Ruby.

"Thanks again for the help Ruby. I appreciate it." She tilted her head, and shrugged her shoulders. "That's what friends are for Jaune. Besides, we had already finished up our own objective." Jaune hadn't been aware of RWBY's battle, and was curious.

"Anything interesting happen?" He asked, not really caring what the objective was. He wanted to know if they had any trouble.

"Not really, just shot some droids, blew some shit up. Yang was really happy about that." She replied, gesturing to Yang as if to emphasize her point, Yang laughing with Nora about something. "We had to fight a Spider Droid though, that really sucked. Blake got hit hard by a SBD. Scared the shit out of me."

 _So that's what happened to her. Lucky to be alive._ Jaune turned his attention towards his team. Nora was still laughing with Yang, her white armor with random pink accents clashing with the bumblebee color scheme of Yang. Like Yang, Nora was a demolitions expert, and loved making the squad laugh. Her official designate was RC-1163, and her typically boisterous attitude always disappeared as soon as she set foot on the battlefield, replaced by the thrill of the hunt. Now standing by her was Ren, clad in his black armor, with green accents, and one seemingly random pink accent on his helmet. Ren was quiet, and he only spoke when he had something worth saying. He was the squad's slicer, and he and Nora were inseparable. His name was officially RC- 2223, but he had chosen the nickname of Ren at an early age, liking the simple name. Standing near Jaune was the squad's crack shot, RC-8051, called Pyrrha. Pyrrha was widely regarded as the best shot of any commando, which she would always dismiss with a laugh and a wave of her hand. She was kind, but ferocious in battle, making sure that no harm would befall her team, her family. Her armor was crimson, with gold accents on her sides and helmet. All that was left was RC-1390, or Jaune. He looked his armor over, noticing scorch marks covering his white and yellow color scheme, twin arcs on his right thigh. All the commandos put their personal emblems on their armor, with the right thigh typically being where it went. Like their armor, the emblems were different and highly personal between the commandos. Their training sergeant had been emphatic on individuality, which Jaune thought was a weird thing to teach clones. But all the soldiers trained by sergeants from Vale had that imprint of individuality, as opposed to the Atlesian commandos. And when his sergeant named Jaune leader of JNPR, he had shouldered the responsibility with a confident exterior, but fear in his heart. It had taken a speech from Ruby to show the commando that he could do this, if only because he couldn't afford to fail his team.

 _Almost failed today though, didn't I?_ Jaune thought glumly.

"This is Harken, I'm about to begin my run, you're gonna want to stand back." The voice that cut into his helmet snapped Jaune out of his thoughts, and both teams began to move as far away from the wall as possible. After retreating through the corridor, Jaune signaled the gunship to begin its assault.

An explosion of dust and rubble cut through the door, hazy sunlight permeating the smoke.

"This is JNPR-Actual, good hit on target Harken. JNPR out." The teams climbed through the hole, their eyes greeted by the sight of a red canyon, the sound of explosions and blaster fire in the distance. And about 10 meters from the wall was the precious ammunition. Jaune quickly began stripping down the case of ammo, satisfied with what he saw. Weiss was at his side, rifling through the ammo. After getting what he needed, Jaune stepped back, giving more room for his friends.

After the last of them got what they needed, Jaune began to walk back towards the factory wall, thinking of his next move. First, they would have to get through the door that had given them so much trouble. That solution, now that they had room to breathe, would be simple.

"Nora, set up a charge on that entryway." He ordered, sweeping his hand towards the door.

"Would you like a small crater, or large crater sir?" She exclaimed happily already getting to work.

"Sorry Nora, but we'll be keeping it small for this one." He chuckled, noting the comically disappointed sigh that escaped from her lips as she finished setting the charge. She began to walk away from the door, giving her leader a nod. _Let's get moving._ Jaune thought as he pressed the trigger down.

The doors exploded in with a satisfying blast, and Team JNPR was the first one in, with RWBY hot on their heels. The central controls were in sight, in the middle of a large room with two entryways. From one door came the commandos. The other was filled with droids and Geonosians. Turrets came to life, blasting the teams, and forcing them into cover.

"Pyr, turrets!" Jaune ordered, returning fire at the turrets, as his crimson sniper began to do the same. The other six commandos began to focus the enemies in the room, especially the annoyingly mobile Geonosians that were advancing on the squads. The turrets fell to the ground with a crash of smoking metal, and Jaune turned his attention to the enemy.

"Ren, get to the controls. Everyone else spread out, keep him covered!" He commanded, moving to a different piece of cover, hoping for a different line of fire. Team RWBY followed his orders, moving around to keep the enemy distracted as Ren sprinted for the console. "Gonna need about a minute here boss!" He relayed to Jaune.

 _One minute. We can do one minute_. Jaune thought, as he began to open fire. Droids were falling left and right, with Geonosians splattering as they took sustained damage.

The enemy had begun to dwindle when a heavily armored Geonosian with what appeared to be a cannon attached to its arm flew through the doorway and assessed the clone's forces. The cannon began to glow bright red, as it took aim at the squad. _Seven_ _on one you fuck,_ Jaune thought, beginning to open fire on the Geonosian, and as it dodged, it let loose from its arsenal, shooting a wide laser beam at Pyrrha. Pyrrha barely dodged it, with some of its beam grazing the back of her left ankle, causing her to yelp in pain. The beam swept left, going right over Nora's head, and tearing apart Weiss's cover. Jaune began to swear as he saw the beam rapidly burn through the cover, leaving Weiss and Nora just seconds before their cover melted down completely, leaving them exposed. The beam was cut short with a resounding bang, and the Geonosian exploded in midair. Confused, Jaune looked at Yang, who was standing up with a smoking anti-air attachment on her rifle, aimed where the Geonosian had been.

"Bug eliminated." She declared, not a trace of humor in her voice. She was forced to drop to the ground as a laser grazed her head, leaving another scorch mark on her already addled armor. "Shit!" She exclaimed.

With the Geonosian out of the picture, Jaune quickly dashed over to Pyrrha, ducking behind cover as lasers continue to fill the air.

"Pyr, you okay?" He said, checking her over, making sure his teammate was unscathed.

"I'm fine, just singed my ankle." She said, trying to get up, but losing balance, and gasping in pain as she fell again.

Despite her fussing, Jaune managed to get her to hold still, and examine her ankle. The laser had cut through the armor, and bare skin was visible, blackened and bloody. _Fuck, it didn't even make direct contact. Gotta be careful of those things in the future._

"Well Pyr, I think you'll make it. Just stay down for now." He told her, picking his rifle back up to continue eradicating their foe.

"Jaune, I've got it, we need to move." Ren said, firing at his enemy, the code safely extracted.

"Advisor, this is JNPR-Actual, we have obtained the codes and are requesting extraction, over."

"Roger that Actual, Harken is coming back around to pick you up. The extraction point will be where he dropped ammo. We are sending a scrambler to RC-2223 that will disable the factory, make sure he uploads it to the mainframe. Advisor, out."

 _More shit with computers?_ Jaune thought, nodding to Ren, as he got back to work. _We'll just have to hold out a little longer._

"Done here chief!" Ren yelled out, making his way to cover closer to his friends. _Or we won't have to hold out for much longer at all._

"Alright everyone, this party's over. Time to go!" Jaune barked out, taking Pyrrha's arm and draping it over his shoulder, and helping her to a standing position. The two began to make their way through the door, followed by Nora and Ren, and RWBY was right behind them, firing at the droids still in the control room.

Harken was already waiting for them, side doors open, ready for extraction.

"Might want to hurry up, meter's running." He said nonchalantly, as if it was the most normal thing in the galaxy to extract two commando squads from a droid factory. Thankfully he had full landed on the ground, despite the engines still running, so Jaune could get Pyrrha in the gunship and seated quickly. He immediately turned around, rifle out, making sure to cover his friends retreat. When all eight were aboard, Harken took off, and Jaune sat down next to Pyrrha. The bay doors closed, and Jaune took his helmet off, which he knew was against regulation, but he figured no one would call him on it, even Weiss.

"Not too bad a first day, huh guys?" He said with a grin on his face, coming down from his adrenaline high.

Nora had taken her helmet off as well, running her hand through her short-cut ginger hair. "I'd say that went well Sarge." She beamed, making Jaune smile even more. Her happiness was often infectious. Soon everyone had taken their helmets off, save for Blake. Her black helmet just stared at the bay door. Jaune knew why her helmet was on, and wouldn't pressure her on it. Jaune looked at Pyrrha, who was just looking at him, a smile on her face, and a strange look in her eyes. _Weird._ He didn't think any more of it, surveying the rest of the commandos. Now that his helmet was off, he could smell the ozone that clung to them, a result of the blaster fire. Yang was chatting with Ruby, talking about something to do with the Geonosian she had killed, which she had dubbed as an Elite. Nora and Ren were talking quietly between themselves, and Pyrrha and Weiss had struck up a conversation about the mission. A smile was on Weiss's scarred face, something not seen often. They were all happy, they had succeeded. Their mission was a success, and they had done their job. Jaune continue to smile, joining in the conversation, despite not really caring much for the topic. It didn't matter, they were alive.

Brothers and sisters all.

* * *

 **So that was fun! We got to meet the main eight, and learn a bit more about them! While I will stay as true to the personalities set up in the show, I will be modifying them to meet my needs, as this is an AU and things are going to be different than they would be back on Remnant. On the topic of kingdoms and planets, I'm going to be keeping the planets like they would be in Star Wars, and I will explain how kingdoms will work extensively in a later chapter. This chapter was filled with some easter eggs, so good on you if you noticed them! I've also begun work on some art work, both cover art, and something to help you visualize what the clones armor looks like. And I know I said that this would probably be a once a week upload fic, and that I've uploaded three chapters in less than a week. I plan on releasing next chapter on Monday, and I'll try and give you guys an estimate for next chapter release at the end of every chapter. That's all I've got to say today, so I'll see you around! As always, thanks for reading!**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby**

 **RC-1104 Weiss**

 **RC-1170 Blake**

 **RC-1126 Yang**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune**

 **RC-1163 Nora**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha**

 **RC-2223 Ren**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	4. Chapter 4- CRDL

**Hey guys! Heil96 here, happy to present the fourth chapter of RWBY Republic Commando! I'll have some more to say at the end of the chapter, see ya there!**

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Pyrrha was beginning to feel annoyed. She had already gotten her ankle treated with bacta, but the medical officer wouldn't let her leave. It had been two days since the battle of Geonosis, and Pyrrha could walk just fine. A message she was trying to convey to the medic.

"Look I can just walk fine, I don't get why you won't let me leave."

"I'm sorry ma'am, but its procedure to keep you here for three days, just to make sure-"

"There a problem here?" A new voice said, and one that Pyrrha knew well. Looking up, she saw Jaune striding towards them, in full armor, minus his helmet. His normally pristine white armor was still covered in Geonosian dust, and scorch marks. _Strange._

"Well sir, this clone wants to leave early, and I can't allow that." The medic responded, upset at having another commando to deal with.

"That 'clone' is a member of my squad, and if she says she can go, then she goes. Unless that's going to be a problem, _civilian."_ Jaune said icily, leaning in towards the medic.

"No Sergeant, that won't be a problem." The medic said, surprisingly holding his ground against the much taller and stronger soldier.

"Perfect. Pyrrha, I think it's time to go." Jaune said, all the malice in his voice gone. He began walking away, and Pyrrha had to hurry to catch up to him. _Wonder why he's in such a rush._

"Where's the rest of our squad?" Pyrrha asked, desperate to see her friends again.

"They're down the hall a bit, Ren finally got a hold of casualty reports from the battle. RWBY's with them." He responded, not slowing down one bit.

 _So that's why we're hurrying to get there._ Ever since JNPR and RWBY arrived on the _Beacon,_ an Acclamator class Republic assault ship, they had received no contact from any of the other commando squads. They could have been dead, or simply on another ship. Logistics had been working it's hardest to get status reports on all the troops, and had finally finished.

"Anyone we know?" Pyrrha asked, hopeful that all of their friends had made it out alive.

"Not when I was there, but a couple of the Vacuo squads got wiped." Jaune answered, and as they rounded a corner, Pyrrha spotted the menagerie of colors that marked her friend's presence. Ren was seated on a bench, Nora right next to him, with RWBY standing around, paying close attention to Ren's words as he read off a data pad. Nora gave her a smile as she approached, while the members of RWBY gave no sign of noticing her, save for Yang, who gave her a slight nod before turning back to Ren.

"Anything yet?" Jaune whispered to Ruby, who, like everyone else except for Pyrrha, was dressed in full armor, minus her helmet. Blake had her helmet on, arms crossed across her chest plate, staring at Ren. Pyrrha was the odd one out, dressed in a casual red shirt and black shorts.

Ruby just shook her head, before giving Pyrrha a tense smile.

"Team BRNZ, two wounded." Ren said, continuing to scroll down the list on his screen.

"Team ABRN, one killed. Two wounded."

"Team SSSN, four wounded."

"I didn't know SSSN had been deployed." Pyrrha whispered, not hearing that the four ARC troopers had been sent to the battlefield. _I guess they needed everyone they could get._ Jaune just shrugged, clearly not giving it much thought.

"Team CFVY, one wounded. Looks like Coco lost a hand out there." Ren said, a glimmer of pain evident on his face. They knew CFVY well, and Pyrrha was surprised that the elite squad had even been hurt at all. They were widely regarded as one of the best squads of the whole commando cadre.

"Team CRDL" Ren said, before pausing, his eyes growing wide.

"Ren, what is it?" Weiss asked cautiously, taken aback by the show of emotion from the normally stoic man.

"Team CRDL, four dead." Ren finished, his shoulders slumping slightly, while the other seven reacted to the news.

"Holy shit, CRDL's gone?" Jaune said, running his right hand through his hair. CRDL and JNPR had clashed before in the past, most notably when Jaune and Cardin had gotten into a savage fistfight, resulting in the both of them being in the infirmary for two weeks. RWBY had their issues with CRDL as well, but none of them wanted to hear of CRDL's demise. Their arguments had been settled, and eventually, Pyrrha had grown close to the team.

Jaune crouched down with his head in his hands, Ruby had her head down, Ren was quietly comforting Nora, Yang and Weiss were speechless, and Blake hadn't moved an inch. The initial cause of Jaune's fight with Cardin was Cardin bullying Blake, and she had clearly not forgotten the awful names they had called her. _Shouldn't matter, they were our comrades, our brothers._

The cause of her torment at Cardin's hands was the same reason why her helmet remained on. Blake, unlike the other seven commandos around her, was a Faunus, a genetic experiment run by the Kaminoan clone masters, attempting to cross the perfect soldier, while giving them animalistic traits. While normal clone soldiers were all cloned from the same man's DNA, Jango Fett, the commandos DNA had been pulled from a melting pot of DNA donated by all the training personnel. Blake's DNA had also been crossed with that of a cat, giving her cat ears, and inherent night vision. These traits weren't all that useful when you had a helmet on, but were a force to be reckoned in civilian gear. Sun, ARC squad SSSN's leader, was another such Faunus, crossed with a monkey. This had given him impressive balance, acrobatic skill, and for some reason, incredible skill at hand-to-hand combat. Unfortunately most of the Faunus had died in incubation, and Cardin had some issues with having a 'freak' nearby. Despite Nora's and Yang's insistence that they would happily break the legs of anyone who dared torment her, Blake would almost always have her helmet on.

Jaune abruptly stood up, breaking Pyrrha away from her current train of thought. He began walking away from the group, confusing everyone.

"Hey Jaune, where are you going?!" Ruby yelled after him, before walking after him, the other six commandos closely behind her.

"I'm going to go talk to someone. I want to see how it happened." Jaune replied, not even looking back to address his fellow team leader. Ruby looked around at her fellow soldiers, confused even more by his cryptic answer.

"How what happened? Jaune, you're not making any sense!" Pyrrha asked, desperately trying to get his attention.

Jaune didn't respond, just turning a corner and stopping in front of a desk in the ships logistic center. Behind the desk was a civilian, tapping away furiously at a data pad, not even looking up at the eight commandos who were in front of her.

After a few seconds of silence, she looked up, almost looking disappointed that they hadn't vanished and left her alone. "Can I help you?" She asked Jaune, not even acknowledging the other soldiers.

"RC-1390 requesting to see helmet footage recovered from commando Team CRDL, ma'am." Jaune said, shocking Pyrrha that he would address this woman so respectfully, despite almost threatening the medical officer. The importance of his request sank in quick on Pyrrha, finally realizing why he had taken off. _Helmet footage? Oh no. He wants to see how they died._ Whether his request stemmed from some perverse sense of revenge, or respect for his fallen comrades was beyond Pyrrha.

"I'm sorry Sergeant, but I'm not authorized to release those files to you." She replied softly, realizing what the man was asking.

"Ma'am please, we knew them well. I just… I just want to see it. Please." He said, almost whispering, his voice breaking as he almost begged her.

She visibly softened, a compassionate look on her face. She looked around, before typing rapidly on her data pad. "It's loaded up for you, in Room 205. Up the stairs, third on the left."

"Thank you ma'am." Jaune replied before walking up the stairs, his friends in tow.

They arrived in Room 205, a mostly empty room, except for a large screen at the front of the room. The seven spread out while Jaune walked up to the screen, and touched the play button displayed on it. He walked back and leaned against a wall, next to Pyrrha. She looked at him uneasily, before returning her gaze to the screen.

* * *

It began with them dropping in on their objective. The camera was Cardin's, with three smaller POV's at the bottom of the screen, relaying what their owners were witnessing. It became apparent that CRDL's objective was the assault of a series of tunnels underground that were moving soldiers and supplies to the front lines for the Separatists. They began moving quickly, cutting through their enemies. Many teams had their strengths, and CRDL was known for its brutal efficiency on the battlefield. As CRDL moved into the underground tunnels, they began to face more and more enemies. Their enemies were primarily Geonosians, and their progress began to slow considerably.

They ran into trouble when a Geonosian Elite appeared, charging up its weapon.

"What the fuck is that?!" Russel yelled out, beginning to open fire on it.

"Who cares, just kill it!" Cardin barked back, training his rifle on the Elite.

They weren't fast enough, as the Elite fired its weapon, Cardin dodging out of the way of the vicious beam, before shooting it down.

"Okay guys, let's keep moving." Cardin said, beginning to move forward Russel grabbed his shoulder, turning him around.

Lying there on the ground, his right leg missing below the knee, was Dove.

"Oh shit no, no no no. Dove, you okay?" Cardin said kneeling by Dove's side.

"Yeah boss I'm just fine, just fucking peachy." Dove responded, taking his helmet and letting it drop by his side.

"Hey we're gonna get you out okay? Put your helmet on, cause you're not done yet, you hear me?" Cardin grabbed Dove, his voice growing desperate.

"Don't lie to me Cardin. Don't you fucking lie to me. We're deep underground, I'm not leaving here. Just go, you have to finish this." Dove replied, his face growing paler as his leg continued to flow blood, staining the dirt beneath him. "You guys have to keep going." He pushed Cardin away, and Sky grabbed his shoulder. "We need to move man."

"Dove, I'm sorry." Cardin said, standing up and backing away from his brother. "I'm so sorry." He turned away, jogging further into the subterranean tunnels.

The team was heading for a central spire, which, when detonated, would collapse the tunnels. Unfortunately, the spire was well protected.

The squad was pinned down behind a rock formation, taking heavy fire from a group of SBD's. Sky had just thrown the team's last grenade, but there was still a super standing. Cardin stood up and fired on the super, as it fell to one knee, its arm pointed directly at the squad, the mounted laser beginning to charge. Cardin recognized the danger, and dropped back down to cover as the charged shot flew by his head, and he heard it hit something behind him. He stood again, only to see Russel finish the super off.

"Nice shot Russel, let's move on squad." He turned around to check on Sky, only to stop, standing completely still.

Lying on the ground, motionless, was Sky, completely fine, save for a few scorch marks on his armor, and a large hole where the top of his helmet should have been.

Neither Russel nor Cardin moved, staring at what was left of their friend. Russel broke the silence, nudging Cardin's arm.

"It was quick. Now come on." Russel turned and began his path towards the spire. Cardin hadn't moved yet. "Car, come on man. Nothing we can do."

Cardin finally moved, following his brother down the jagged path that led to the spire.

Their breathing was ragged, and they began to stumble on the uneven terrain. They were close, but the path was filled with droids. Russel and Cardin fell under heavy fire, ducking behind a pair of rocks, attempting to shoot back. Cardin popped up, firing at the droids. A bolt hit him in the thigh, but his armor absorbed the damage. He looked over and Russel had just stood, attempting to draw fire from his leader. One bolt sunk into his chest, and then another, and a third hit him in the helmet, snapping his head back. He stumbled back, before dropping to the grounds as another salvo went over him.

"Russ!" Cardin yelled, shooting at the droids, destroying them one by one. Another torrent of blue plasma joined his, letting him know that Russel was alive and well. The droids fell one by one, fragmenting as their casings overheated from the plasma.

When the droids were gone, Cardin looked over at his brother, concern evident in his voice. "Russ, you ok man?"

Russel just nodded his head, and the duo took off. They rounded a corner, and saw the central spire. And ten meters to the left of the spire was a spider droid.

"Move!" Cardin roared, as they began to sprint towards the spire. The droid fired, but Russel slid on his back before quickly standing back up, dodging the lethal bolt. Cardin ran to the spire, and began setting a charge, Russel standing next to him.

"Uh, we have a problem." Russel said, pointing towards the path they had just come from. There was a Geonosian Elite hovering there, surveying the battlefield. The Elite was blocking the only other way out, unless they wanted to run past the spider droid. They were trapped.

"We don't have the ammo for this boss." Russel said, almost apologetically, as Cardin keyed in the last part of the code, priming the charge for detonation. He just looked at it, before turning and looking at Russel.

"Sorry Russ." He said, his thumb on the trigger of the detonator.

"Don't worry about it Cardin." Russel said, taking his helmet off, as Cardin pressed his thumb down.

* * *

The screen was completely black. The room was completely silent, all the commandos looking downtrodden after the deaths they had just witnessed. Even Blake was staring at the ground, her hands on her helmet.

Jaune moved first, as he began to walk towards the door. He paused, looking back at his friends. "Come on guys. Sitting here won't do us any good."

Pyrrha nodded, walking towards her leader, as the rest of the clones did the rest. She gave the black screen one last look, before leaving the room.

Jaune was right. There was no point dwelling on the things they could control. Instead Pyrrha would worry about the things she could. Like making sure that all her friends made it through this war.

* * *

 **So in this chapter we get to both meet, and say goodbye to Team CRDL. I had a lot of fun writing this whole chapter, but especially their part. The next chapter won't really have any action in it, just some more relationship building between characters. Next chapter will be up on Friday, and I'll be posting a new RWBY fic on Wednesday if everything goes to plan. Shout out to Bread and JohnCJDrak, for being supportive of this fic and helping me out with some ideas! Anyway, that's all I got today, see you next time! And as always, thanks for reading!**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby**

 **RC-1104 Weiss**

 **RC-1170 Blake**

 **RC-1126 Yang**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune**

 **RC-1163 Nora**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha**

 **RC-2223 Ren**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	5. Chapter 5- Emotions

**A/N: I pushed this chapter back because of the state of the subreddit yesterday, and I just kind of lost track of time. Like always, I'll have more to say at the end of the chapter, see ya there!**

* * *

Yang had never seen a commando die before. The worse she had ever seen someone get hurt was Jaune after his fight with Cardin. _Cardin._ Even thinking his name made a spike of pain shoot through his heart. It wasn't about the fact that he died, she had never been close with him, it was about what CRDL's deaths meant. They meant that no one was safe from the reaper. She had always been the one to try and lighten the mood, whether through cracking jokes or playing sexy guitar riffs through the comlink, she was always trying to make people laugh. But she felt different now, she felt a dull ache inside her.

"Yang?" She turned to see Weiss walking towards her. _Not now Ice Queen._

"Listen Weiss, I'm not in the mood to fight right now." Yang said, before turning back away from her teammate. She felt a hand on her shoulder and spun around, ready to yell at Weiss, but stopped when she saw the worried look on her face.

"I'm not here to fight Yang, I was just checking to see if you were okay after seeing that." She said softly, surprising Yang.

"I'm fine Weiss, how are you doing?" She replied, now interested in what caused this change of heart from the typically frosty commando.

"I'm holding up. I'm going to head back to where the others. You coming with?"

"Yeah, let's go." Yang walked back with Weiss, seeing that JNPR and Ruby and Blake were hanging around where they had been when Ren had found out about CRDL. While JNPR was talking amongst themselves, Ruby and Blake seemed to be deep in conversation. Judging from the expression on Ruby's face, she wasn't happy. As soon as she saw her teammates walking towards her, she quickly replaced her expression with a happier one, albeit still tainted with sadness.

"Hey guys!" Yang nodded towards her leader before walking up to JNPR. Pyrrha had armored up, her helmet clipped to her belt. She seemed to be grilling Jaune, along with the help of Ren and Nora. _What's this about?_

"Really Pyrrha, it's not that big a deal. You're reading into it too much." He said, leaning up against a wall, trying to act relaxed, but Yang noticed the tension in his jawline that revealed his true emotions. Jaune was upset about something. Pyrrha just crossed her arms across her chest, staring at Jaune for a second longer, before turning to Yang.

"Hey Yang. How are you doing?" She asked good-naturedly, but Yang could tell she was still upset with Jaune. _Fuck, is everyone worried about me?_

"Just fine, getting a little bored though." Yang replied, noticing that the rest of her team had joined her, wanting to be a part of the conversation.

"I know what you mean, I'm dying to get some action here." Nora added, bouncing on her heels impatiently.

"Nora, we just got back from our first mission. There's no telling when we'll get a break like this again. It would be best if we took advantage of it." Ren said, putting his hand on Nora's shoulder, calming her down, as the bomber stopped bouncing, and stood still.

"Ren's right guys, we don't know when we'll be able to see each other again. We'll probably get deployed soon." Ruby said, standing next to Yang.

"Think we could walk around the _Beacon_? Maybe get some lunch?" Jaune suggested, pushing off the wall and standing alongside his team.

"Yeah, I heard the _Beacon_ has a five-star restaurant on board." Weiss said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

"Any better ideas Ice Queen?" Jaune shot back, taking Weiss by surprise.

"Well… no. I suppose not." Weiss admitted, sighing. "Lead the way." The group moving out, anxious to spend the rest of their time together having fun.

* * *

Blake was conflicted. When she had heard of CRDL's death, she had felt sadness. And she hated that, she hated CRDL, and most of all, she hated Cardin. He was scum, and as much as he had claimed that he learned his lesson after Jaune viciously beat him, Blake had never truly believed him. _Even if he did stop calling me a freak after the fight, it doesn't change anything._ God, the fight. Blake had just got back from training when Cardin cornered her, insulting her and demanding that the freak _put herself down like the animal she was_. Blake would have fought back, but she was exhausted after training, and having been separated from her team, she feared the worst. But Jaune had come out of nowhere, landing a savage strike on Cardin. The two fought like dogs, and by the time they were separated, they both had to go to the infirmary. Cardin's nose never looked the same, Jaune had a scar across his face, and he had broken both of his hands on Cardin's face. After that day, Blake's helmet stayed on and she got even quieter, speaking only when absolutely necessary. But then CRDL had died, and she didn't have anyone else to fear. Her demons had been killed, she had seen the proof, but they still haunted her.

While Weiss went to talk to Yang, Ruby had pulled Blake aside.

"How are you feeling?" She had asked, but dodged the question.

"Ready for combat ma'am." She had replied, hoping Ruby would drop the topic. Of course, she didn't.

"Dammit Blake that's not what I meant and you know it. I want to know how you're doing after what we just saw."

"CRDL is dead. So what?"

"I know how you felt about them Blake. I know what they did to you." Ruby had a guilty expression on her face as she said that, she had blamed herself for what happened to Blake that day, despite Blake's insistence that it wasn't her fault.

"Doesn't matter." Blake responded, trying to brush her leader off.

"That's not good enough and you know it. Blake, one of these days you're going to have to face yourself and take that helmet off." Ruby looked behind Blake, and put a fake smile on her face. "We're not done, understand?" She said before greeting Yang.

And now Blake was walking at the back of the group, as her friends talked to one another while they walked around the _Beacon_. Ruby's words echoed in her head, reminding her of her greatest fear. _What's to be afraid of? I know that no one form JNPR would mock me, and my team wouldn't either. So why can't I take this helmet off?_ No matter how bad she may have wanted to, she couldn't bring herself to take her helmet off. She had gotten used to it being her safe haven, and she had grown dependent on it. _Maybe I am a freak, a monster, and that's why I hide behind the helmet. Maybe the one person I'm afraid of is myself._

Blake took a deep breath, and removed her helmet, clipping it to her belt. She breathed in the recycled air on board the assault ship, and felt the relief on her ears. Well, her cat ears. Keeping them confined to a helmet all this time felt cramped, and it felt good to have them out in the open. They were already twitching, taking in all the new sounds.

Nora looked back and just smiled, nodding her head slightly. Just when Blake was feeling confident, they walked past a squadron of troopers. One of the troopers looked up, and stared at her. "What the fu-." He didn't get the chance to finish, as Nora had strode up to him and slammed him into the wall.

"If you value your legs, I wouldn't finish that sentence." She said, staring him down. His friends stood up, looking as if they wanted to intervene, but were hesitant to brawl with commandos. Commandos had been given the reputation of being chemically imbalanced on a good day, and were typically not people you wanted upset at you. The commandos began to move forward, ready to defend Nora.

"Now I recommend that you apologize to my friend here, before we get start getting violent." Nora growled, threatening the poor clone, who was now trembling.

"Alright! I'm sorry! Now please, let me go." He replied, his voice breaking out of fear.

Nora looked to Blake, seeking her approval. Blake simply nodded, not wanting the situation to turn brutal. She had seen enough fights caused by her presence already, she didn't want to see anymore.

Nora released the trooper, and him and his friends ran off, eager to be as far away from the commandos as possible.

Blake was staring at Nora, and the bomber just shrugged her shoulders. "I wasn't gonna actually break his legs, just giving him a friendly warning." She said, joining Ren again, as the rest of the commandos began to walk again.

Blake almost put her helmet on, but a reassuring smile from Ruby strengthened her decision to keep it off. _I can do this, there's nothing to be afraid of._ She took a deep breath, and followed her friends.

"Here's the mess hall. You guys hungry?" Jaune stated from the front of the group, the tension gone from his voice. Pyrrha still appeared to be upset though, before instinctively smiling when some of the soldiers looked at her.

"Yeah, I guess I could eat." Ruby said, and the rest of her team nodded their agreement. They walked into the mess hall, got their food, and sat down at a table.

"You know, would it kill them to make something with some flavor?" Yang asked while chewing, inspecting a piece of food on her fork.

"What's the matter, not a fan of cafeteria food?" Weiss asked mockingly, despite also hating the food. It tasted like dirt, and everyone knew it.

"I didn't know you were such a fan of the cooking here Princess." Yang rose to the challenge, putting her fork down.

Right as Weiss was about to respond, a beep cut through the air. Ruby's comlink had gone off, and she pulled it out to check the message.

"Time to wrap it up team, we've got mission briefing in twenty minutes." She stated, standing up.

"What's the rush Ruby? That's plenty of time." Yang asked, her previous argument forgotten.

"The briefing is on the other side of the _Beacon._ " Ruby said, picking her tray up, ready to throw it away. Her team did the same, Yang sighing. "Just our fucking luck."  
Another beep rang out, and Jaune's comlink went off. He checked the message, and stood up with an amused smile on his face.

"Looks like we're going to be briefed too, but ours is in an hour." He nodded towards RWBY, the smile now gone from his face. "Come back in one piece okay?"

Ruby just smiled, waving at JNPR. "We'll be fine, take care of yourselves out there." The rest of the two teams exchanged their farewells, and RWBY walked out of the mess hall, ready to begin their next mission. It was time to get back in the action.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm back! We get some insight on Blake and her emotional strife, and how her teammates react to that. I enjoyed writing from Yang's POV, and showing how she deals with being shown the deaths of soldiers she knew. I teased at some issues with Pyrrha and Jaune as well, which will show back up later. Next chapter we get back into the fighting, and the next few chapters will be combat oriented. That's all I've got, and I'll hopefully be posting the next chapter on Monday. See you guys then, and thanks for reading!**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby**

 **RC-1104 Weiss**

 **RC-1170 Blake**

 **RC-1126 Yang**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune**

 **RC-1163 Nora**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha**

 **RC-2223 Ren**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	6. Chapter 6- Collateral Damage

Weiss could feel a chill run down her spine as the cold wind blew in through the dropships open bay door. Her helmet was off, showing her scarred face, and short white hair. Yang was playing music, but Weiss didn't care. No point in arguing over something trivial like that when her focus should be on the mission. Team RWBY was being dropped into Qiilura, a planet with few distinguishing features, as most of the denizens were farmers. The one thing that made this planet stand out was that the Separatists had set up a garrison in one of the 'larger' villages. Calling this place a town would be an exaggeration, but the Separatists were here, and the commandos had been sent to take them out. More specifically, besides the basic search and destroy of all Separatist personnel and equipment, the squad had been sent to assassinate the warlord who had been selling ore to the Separatists, helping them with their war machine.

Weiss could tell her teammates were having a conversation through their body language, so she took one last breath of fresh air, and put her helmet on.

"I don't think poisoning him is our best option here Yang." Ruby was saying to the demolitions expert seated across from her, Yang and Blake sitting right next to each other.

"How would you do it then? We're supposed to assassinate him." Yang replied, the dark haired girl next to her shaking her head and laughing.

"Just snipe him from a distance. It's the easiest solution." Ruby retorted, only to have Yang throw her hands in the air.

"Where's the fun in that?" She said, faking a hurt tone of voice.

"Yang, Ruby's route is more efficient." Blake added, putting her hand on Yang's shoulder.

"What do you think Weiss?" Yang asked, turning to the white-armored soldier.

Weiss shrugged before answering, as if she didn't really care how he died. "I dunno, sniping him sounds easier."

"What if we blow him up?" Yang asked, throwing ideas out for the squad.

"That actually isn't an awful idea." Weiss said thoughtfully.

"Wait, what?" Yang looked around, confused. Blake just shrugged, and Ruby had sat back in her seat, interested to see where this went. "Weiss, did you just agree with me?"

"No, I just said your idea wasn't awful. There's a difference." Weiss looked at Ruby, who just held her hands out like she wanted no part in this. "There is!"

"How would we blow him up?" Blake asked, skepticism evident in her voice.

Yang just shrugged, clearly not having thought that far ahead. "I dunno."

The pilot came in over their comlinks, informing them that they would be dropping in thirty seconds. They were in a repurposed freighter, so the Separatists wouldn't know that the commandos were on the planet. All chatter stopped, and the girls stood, ready to start the mission. They jumped out of the freighter as it hovered above the ground, and the girls immediately began to run into the forest nearby. They had been dropped off in a clearing, and they had to be careful not to be spotted.

"Everyone good?" Ruby asked, leaning against a tree trunk, aiming down the sights of her rifle, scanning the area.

"I'm ready to go." Yang responded, also leveling her rifle, and watching the horizon.

Blake simply nodded, and Weiss gave Ruby a thumbs-up. Ruby crouched down, dropping a holo-caster on the ground. A holographic map of the area appeared above it, casting a blue light on the ground.

"We're about five klicks out from the target area, so we need to start moving." She said, standing up, and taking point.

Weiss followed her leader, the team was spread out among the woods, moving as quietly as possible, but with the fallen leaves on the ground, that task was proving to be very difficult. Every step was met with a crunch, and it seemed impossibly loud in contrast to the silence that surrounded them.

Ruby held up one fist, halting the team, before dropping down to one knee. The rest of the team followed suit, and Weiss instinctively brought her rifle to her shoulder. Ruby wouldn't stop them for no reason.

"What's going on boss?" Yang whispered, her rifle aimed and slowly moving back and forth.

"Contact. Two targets, at our twelve." Ruby responded, and Weiss saw them too. Two Trandoshan mercenaries were walking, rifles lowered, chatting to one another. They clearly didn't know that the commandos were there, and weren't aware of the danger they were in.

"I've got the shot lined up eight-three." Blake said, and Weiss also lined up a shot, ready to engage.

"Negative, do not shoot." Ruby hissed, clearly hoping that the two mercs would just keep walking, but if they noticed the commandos then their cover was blown.

"We aren't exactly hidden here Ruby." Weiss muttered, the crosshairs of her rifle on the head of one of the lizard-men. She silently cursed the squad's armor, not made to blend in, but to stand out. At the time it had seemed like a good idea, a way to be an individual in an army of clones. Right now, it was a liability.

"I fucking know that Weiss. Do. Not. Fire." Ruby shot back, nervously observing the Trandoshans. They were walking towards the squad, and one of them seemed to squint, before raising his blaster.

A puff of vapor rose from his forehead as Weiss squeezed the trigger, sending a bolt of plasma through his brain. The second Trando dropped almost immediately, courtesy of a shot from Blake.

"Fuck." Ruby stood, her rifle still at her shoulder. "Let's go, we need to hide the bodies."

They jogged over, rifle's still at the ready. They were on edge now, afraid of any more contact with the enemy. Ruby stood over the two bodies, staring at them.

"Blake, Weiss, since you two took them down, you get the honor of hiding them. Make sure you check for anything that might help us." She ordered, stepping away from the corpses, taking watch with Yang.

Weiss sighed, before walking over to the Trando she had killed. She checked him, looking for plans, cash, ID, anything that could help the commandos. After taking his wallet, and looking through it only to find it empty, she began to hide the body in some underbrush, making sure the body was fully covered. She looked over to see Blake doing the same, covering up the drag marks on the ground. Weiss began to do the same, before walking over to Ruby.

Ruby looked over her shoulder at her teammate, before looking back towards the horizon. She seemed upset, and Weiss could guess why.

"Didn't have any other options Sarge." Was all she could say, feeling that no more was necessary. Ruby sighed, before nodding. Blake joined them, her rifle held casually at her side.

"Let's move out." Ruby said, taking point once again. This time the squad was talking amongst one another, trying to dispel their nerves.

"Intel didn't say anything about mercs, did they?" Weiss asked casually, slowly walking through the woods.

"Nah, but you know that you can't trust Intel. I'm sure there's more here than they told us." Yang replied, confirming Weiss's suspicions. _What else could be out here that Intel didn't know about?_

Ruby held her fist up, making Weiss's heartbeat accelerate, but Ruby stayed standing, which confused Weiss.

"Sarge, is everything okay?" Blake asked nervously from the rear of the group.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me." Was all Ruby said, muttering to herself.

Weiss walked up next to her, and saw what had caused Ruby to swear. The forest in front of them was gone, leading to a massive clearing. They were still three kilometers from their target, and they would have to cover that distance in open ground.

"Intel is just killing it today, aren't they?" Yang sighed, kicking a branch on the ground. Blake sat on a tree stump, surveying the area.

"How are we supposed to do this?" Weiss asked, standing next to Ruby. They would be incredibly exposed when crossing the land, and they couldn't afford to be seen.

"We'll wait for nightfall, and then we'll cross." Ruby said, before sitting down against a tree trunk.

* * *

Night descended on the silent countryside, and the squad was growing restless. They were getting increasingly nervous that someone would come for the two mercenaries they had killed. Blake was sitting in a tree, her sniper out. She kept scanning the area, looking for any contacts. Beside a small farmhouse in the middle of the clearing, there was nothing out there. She was aware of the rest of her squad below her, each of them on guard in case any enemies showed up. No one had slept, as it had been decided that they would sleep when they had made it through the clearing, as there were some trees on the other side, and they would rest there.

"Blake, come on down. We're moving soon." Ruby's voice popped into Blake's helmet, the sniper had removed herself from the squad's comlink channel, hoping for some privacy. While the others could join her channel if they wanted, they hadn't, respecting her privacy. She dropped down, landing smoothly next to her leader.

"Back with us Blake?" Yang asked, looking at the clearing.

"Never left." She murmured, as the squad got ready to move.

"Okay guys, move quick, but move quiet. Keep it together, and we'll be fine. Let's go." Ruby ran out first, breaking into the clearing, her three sisters behind her.

They ran low to the ground, spread out, staying wary of their surroundings. They were coming up on the farmhouse, and began to go around it, when Yang slipped and fell.

"Motherfucker! Why is there a hole here?" She cried out, as the rest of the commandos froze, and a light turned on in the farmhouse.

The commandos laid on the ground, hoping that no one would come out. "Stay inside, stay inside." Yang whispered. No one could hear the commandos outside their helmets, but the commotion that Yang made was attracting attention.

The door opened, and Blake had her rifle trained on the door. They couldn't afford to be spotted, and she was prepared to do what had to be done.

"Blake, wait." Ruby hissed, but her rifle was also on the door.

The man that stepped out the door began walking towards where Yang was, and Blake made a split decision.

She stood up, turning her floodlight on, and activating her helmet speaker. "Freeze!"

He stopped, and the other commandos stood up, their lights on.

"How many others are in the house?" Weiss asked, her voice shaky.

"Just my family. Four other people." He replied, trembling.

"Get them out here. Now." Ruby ordered, and the man walked back inside.

"What's the plan Ruby?" Yang asked, walking towards the house.

"They saw us. We'll explain to them what we're doing here, how we're here to liberate them, and leave them be." Ruby replied, as the man walked back outside, his family trailing him.

"They won't care what we're here for, they'll turn us in the first chance they get, their life won't be any better with the Republic than with the Seps." Blake said, hating herself for it, but knowing she was right.

"What exactly are you suggesting seventy?" Ruby shot back, their conversation back to their comlinks, so they didn't scare the locals any more.

"You know what I'm suggesting Sarge." Blake shot back, as she walked behind the group of locals. The man was shaking, and his wife was next to him, holding their children. Two sons, and one daughter. Blake's heart rate begin to accelerate, trying not to think about what was going to happen.

Ruby held her hand to her helmet, calling command. Yang and Weiss stood next to Blake, behind the group of civilians. The night was quiet, no clouds in the sky, the moon shining on the civilians, as they trembled in front of the soldiers.

"Get ready." Ruby said quietly, as she joined her squad, their rifles trained at the family.

"Please, don't do this. We won't tell anyone, just leave us alone." The man began to beg for his life, and the squad prepared for what was about to happen.

"On your knees." Ruby ordered, her voice harsh, surprising Blake.

The family fell to their knees, beginning to weep.

"Do it." She ordered, and the peaceful night was split by the sound of plasma fire, before falling silent again.

* * *

Yang ripped her helmet off, retching. Weiss just sighed, and Ruby turned towards Blake. "Happy now?" She demanded, her voice filled with anger.

"No. But you know this had to be done." Blake replied, afraid to look at the gruesome scene before her.

"Do we move them?" Weiss asked quietly, staring at the bodies.

"No, we have to get moving. We've done enough damage today. Yang, square yourself away. Let's go." Ruby replied, her voice still hard, as she moved forward. Yang put her helmet back on, the taste of bile still in her mouth.

She trailed behind the group, the faces of the family haunting her. _They're dead because of you Yang. If you hadn't fucked up, they would still be asleep, alive, and warm in their house._

"Yang, you good?" Weiss asked, dropping behind to jog with Yang. Yang just shook her head, not wanting to talk about it. "Okay, we can talk about it later."

They made it to the tree line, and the group continued a decent way into the forest, before Ruby slowed down, and stopped, turning to face the group.

"We'll sleep here. Who wants first watch?" She asked, Yang raising her hand. Blake climbed a tree, and Weiss sat down, leaning against a tree trunk. Yang climbed a tree a small distance from the squad. She propped herself up, her rifle slung across her chest. She knew that she would be getting no sleep tonight, as the sounds of the family begging continued to echo in her head.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys! Heil96 back again with another chapter of RC RWBY. I really liked this chapter, and I hopped around perspective a bit, and I'll probably keep doing that, although there will be chapters still that stay from one person's POV. We get into some darker stuff here, and we get to see the effect it has on the squad. Next chapter will be up Friday, and I'll be posting the first chapter of my new fic tomorrow, and that one will update every Wednesday. That's all I've got for this chapter, thanks for reading!**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby**

 **RC-1104 Weiss**

 **RC-1170 Blake**

 **RC-1126 Yang**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune**

 **RC-1163 Nora**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha**

 **RC-2223 Ren**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	7. Chapter 7- Preparation

"Sir, we may have a situation."

Junior Xiong turned towards the woman who had addressed him, she was standing in the doorway into his office. Well, it wasn't so much of an office, but a room in the Separatist garrison that he had commandeered for himself.

"What is it?" he asked, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his desk.

"Two Trandoshans still have yet to report back in from their patrol last night." She began, looking at the data pad she held in her hands.

"They're probably passed out drunk in a ditch somewhere." He cut in, with a dismissive wave of his hand. The mercenaries were notorious for getting drunk on the job, which irritated Junior to no end.

"Well normally I wouldn't think this to be a big deal, but a family failed to report in to their work shift this morning. We sent a squad to their house, and found this." She slid the data pad across the table, and Junior picked it up.

His brow furrowed in concern at the images he was seeing. "Did they find anything else?" He asked, looking up at her.

"No sir. Just the bodies. And sir, the way the bodies were lying makes it seem like they were executed." She added, taking the data pad as he handed it back to her.

Junior sighed, his head in his hands. "Miltia, I believe we may have an enemy presence on the planet."

* * *

Blake was sitting in a tree, her legs straddling a branch as she leaned back against the trunk, her rifle at her shoulder. It was just after dawn, with the morning sun streaming through the leaves. This place was beautiful, but it had been stained by brutality. A patrol had gone to the farmhouse, and had rapidly ran off. _They'll be preparing for us._ She thought grimly, knowing that RWBY's job had gotten more difficult. She wouldn't bring it up though, Yang was having a hard enough time already. Sighing, she scanned the area with her sniper, bringing her sights to rest on the Separatist garrison. The building was nothing special, just a brick and mortar building shaped like a rectangle. In front of the garrison, an alarming amount of battle droids was forming. Blake's heart rate began to rise, afraid that the droids would come for RWBY.

"Boss." She said, alerting Ruby. "We may have a situation here."

Ruby walked behind the tree Blake was in, using it for cover as she got out her sniper attachment. "Problem seventy?"

"Large amount of droids gathering in front of the garrison. I don't know what they're up to."

Ruby looked at the garrison down her sights, and sighed.

"Look who just walked out the front door."

Blake moved her sight back to the front of the building, to see a large man walking out, flanked by two identical looking women. Junior Xiong was walking towards the droids, who had been joined by a number of mercenaries. They were standing in a line.

"Is he inspecting his troops?" Weiss asked, joining the team with her sniper out.

"What's the point of inspecting droids?" Yang added, steadying her rifle on a tree stump.

"Maybe it's a show of power to the locals." Ruby mused, her voice unconfident.

"Or us." Blake muttered, her crosshair trained on the man's forehead.

"Ruby I have a shot lined up here." She informed her leader, finger on the trigger.

"Negative Blake, I'd rather not get slaughtered by those droids. We need to make preparations." Ruby replied, lowering her rifle, and crouching down, opening the holocron that had the layout of the area on it.

Blake sighed, before dropping out of the tree and landing next to Ruby, who was inspecting the map. Yang and Weiss came over, looking at the map as well.

"So those droids are going to be a problem for us. We need to figure out how to take them out of the equation." Ruby said, her right hand under her helmet.

"Why don't we just call in an assault ship and have them level the place with everyone in it?" Yang asked, her arms crossed, rifle slung over her shoulder.

"We would, if command wasn't worried about a Separatist fleet coming over and destroying our ships. That's why we got dropped in a freighter, and why they only sent in one squad." Ruby asked, turning the map in the air, trying to get a different perspective.

"The main form of income in this area is mining right?" Weiss asked, crouching down and looking at the map.

"Yeah, that's also why the Seps set up shop here. Why?" Ruby asked, taking her eyes off the map and looking at her white-clad teammate.

"Well, a mining operation of that scale is bound to use explosives. Nice specialized charges, shaped for maximum efficiency. Very tidy." Weiss said, scrolling the view of the map to the mining area.

"It'd be a shame if some of those charges got misplaced. An even bigger shame if those charges were used to remove a certain garrison." Weiss continued, a smile creeping into her voice.

"So we blow it up." Yang said, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.

"Okay guys, we'll go with that. No point sending us all, so Weiss and I will go get the explosives. Yang, Blake, you two stay here and keep running recon on the garrison. Update me if anything comes up."

* * *

Weiss was creeping through the forest, looking at the mining complex. The work day had ended, and all the workers had gone home. Ruby was next to her, crouched down with her rifle ready.

"Where do you think they keep the explosives?" Ruby whispered, her rifle slowly scanning from side to side.

"Probably in that building labeled explosives." Weiss deadpanned, pointing towards said building.

"Well that makes our job easier. Let's go."

The two commandos walked towards the building, keeping low to the ground. They came to a stop outside the small building, and Ruby raised up a scanner.

"Two inside." She said, putting the scanner away.

"Well I suppose firing anything into the building is out of the question." Weiss said, putting her rifle away.

"You wouldn't even feel it." Ruby said, pulling out a thermal detonator. Weiss's eyes widened, hoping her leader wasn't about to throw a live grenade into the building.

"How nervous would you be, sitting in a room filled with enough explosives in it to send this chunk of rock into orbit?" Ruby asked, tossing the grenade up down in her palm nonchalantly.

"Drink-spilling nervous, I'd say." Weiss said, still staring at the grenade.

"Yeah, I figured you would say something like that." Ruby said, before checking that the thermal detonator was not primed.

Ruby rolled the grenade into the room, and two mercenaries, humans this time, came sprinting out of the building as fast as they could. One ran straight into Ruby, who put one hand over his mouth and the other on the back of his head, ending his life with a sharp twist of her arms.

The other one was a bit harder to take down, as Weiss jammed her vibroblade into his jugular, bringing him to the ground with her other hand. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a pathetic wheeze. She jerked her blade to the side before yanking it out, one hand over his mouth in case he made too much noise. He struggled for a few seconds, before becoming still. She looked at her white armor, which had a nice spray of blood down the middle of her chest plate, and blood was on her gauntlets as well. _This is going to take forever to come off._

Weiss looked up to see Ruby peering into the room, before walking in and collecting her grenade. Weiss walked in, and was taken aback by the sheer amount of explosives.

"We're going to need something to carry this all back." She said, as Ruby just looked behind her.

"Gonna need to move these bodies too."

* * *

"Hey Blake." Blake was snapped out of her recon by the voice of her squad mate, who was sitting to her left.

"Why are we here?" The soldier continued while still aiming down her sights.

"Like, in this universe? In a metaphysical way?" Blake asked curiously, wondering why her friend was asking this.

"No, I mean here. On Qiilura." The demolitions expert said, still not taking her eyes off the garrison.

"We're here to liberate these people from Separatist rule." Blake said matter-of-factly.

"That's bullshit." Blake was stunned, as Yang continued. "These people don't need liberation. They're not being oppressed, I mean for fucks sake they're getting jobs because of the Seps, they're putting food on the table. I'm not sure that these people would be better off under the Republic."

"What are you saying Yang?"

"I'm saying this is asset denial. We're here because the Seps have something that the Republic wants, so we come here and kill and destroy so that the Republic gets what it wants. Saying this is a liberation mission is an insult to the people here who got stuck in the middle, because if this was liberation, we wouldn't have _fucking killed five civilians Blake._ If this was liberation, the advisor would have told Ruby to tell the family to shut up about us and we would be out of their hair. But no, we gunned them down like fucking animals, because they knew we were here, and we couldn't risk them telling Junior. That makes a difference, at least to me."

Silence fell between the two, Blake contemplating what had just been said, while Yang seemed to be gathering her thoughts after this outburst. This wasn't like Yang, she was all smiles, trying to make people laugh. This was serious, a side of her Blake had never seen.

"Hey Blake." She was ripped from her thoughts, almost afraid of what would come next.

"Are we the good guys?"

"I don't think it's that simple Yang."

"We were always taught that the Republic was this good and glorious symbol of all that was right in this galaxy, but the more I see, the less I like."

"What are you trying to say Yang?"

"I dunno. Forget it. And don't bring this up to Weiss or Ruby, I don't need them on my ass about this."

Blake was a lot of things, but she wasn't the type of person to tell someone else something as important as what Yang had just said. Yang was clearly troubled about what had happened last night, and Blake would respect her privacy.

"I won't say a word."

* * *

Weiss and Ruby returned as night was falling, carrying large bags filled with explosives. They gingerly set them down, taking care to make sure that the ordnance didn't explode.

"What happened to your armor Weiss?" Yang asked, pointing at Weiss's chest plate, which was covered in dry blood, staining her white armor a dark crimson.

"Spilled some food on it." Weiss said, shrugging her shoulders as Yang laughed.

Ruby sat on a tree trunk, and the rest of the team gathered by her, forming a diamond.

"So we've got the explosives, we just need to get them into the garrison." She said, her hand under her helmet once again as she thought.

The group sat in silence, trying to think of a way into the garrison.

"Wait, don't they have deliveries sent inside the garrison?" Weiss asked, thinking of another plan.

"Yeah, but I'm not sure they would take in a bag full of explosives." Blake responded, skeptical of where this train of thought was going.

"We could maybe disguise it?" Weiss said, not sure of herself.

"According to the map, there's some construction going on behind the garrison. We could put it there." Ruby said, standing up and walking towards the sack filled with explosives.

She pulled some out, and gestured her team to come over and join her.

"Come on guys, this bomb won't make itself."

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys! Heil96 back, with a new chapter! Hope you guys enjoyed a further view on the mental state of everyone's favorite blonde, Yang! I'll be going in depth on the mental state of the main 8 throughout the story, so expect that. Everyone's mental state and the detrimental effect the war has on them is going to be huge theme throughout the fic, and I'm looking forward to writing that out! I believe that this chapter is the shortest so far, and that's because I wanted this stage of the mission and the combat stage to be different. And if you're worried that RWBY is just going to snipe Junior, blow the place up, and walk away, I can assure you that will not be happening. I released my new fic yesterday, and it's an OC fic set in the RWBY universe. If that's your style go check it out, and if not, no worries! I'm also about 6k words into my moncon for the RWBY subreddit, and hopefully I'll release that sometime next week, but no promises. That's about all I have to say this time, and look for the next chapter of RC RWBY Monday at around noon CST. Until next time, thanks for reading!**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby**

 **RC-1104 Weiss**

 **RC-1170 Blake**

 **RC-1126 Yang**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune**

 **RC-1163 Nora**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha**

 **RC-2223 Ren**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	8. Chapter 8- Execution

Weiss was creeping through a construction zone at midnight, with a makeshift bomb in her hand. She was going to have to plant the device close enough to the garrison to completely level the place. If any guards saw her, she was dead. All in all, she'd had worse days.

"How's it going Weiss?" Ruby came in over the comms, since she and the other two commandos were back in the forest, watching to make sure no one in the garrison came out and saw her.

"Fine." Weiss whispered back, feeling the need to be quiet, despite her knowledge that no one outside her helmet could hear her unless she wanted them to.

"You sound nervous." Blake pointed out, clearly having a good time with Weiss's nervousness.

"I'm just walking through a construction yard with a bomb filled with high explosives, and if I get seen, I'll be shot. So yeah, I'm pretty fucking nervous."" Weiss shot back, not in the mood to be messed with.

"Ah don't worry Weiss, if they shoot you just try and shield yourself with the bomb. You'll complete the objective, and you won't even feel it!" Yang entered the conversation a little too cheerfully, a hint of laughter in her voice.

"Yang I will come back there and shove this bomb so far up your-." Was as far as Weiss got before Ruby interjected, as Yang roared with laughter.

"Okay guys, let's calm down. You got this Weiss." Ruby said, before the comms went silent.

Weiss looked around as silence fell once again around her, suddenly becoming more nervous. _Fuck, I kind of miss them now._

Weiss approached the edge of the construction site, where it was closest to the garrison. Gently setting the bomb down, she began to dig a hole to place the bomb in. She was worried at first that the dirt would suppress most of the blast, but Yang had assured them that she "had filled that with enough of the good stuff to put a large crater in this dirt planet." Weiss hoped that she didn't fill it with _that_ much explosives, since the team would have to be relatively close by to detonate it.

Satisfied with the depth of the hole she had dug, she gingerly lowered the bomb into it, before covering it with a tarp.

Weiss began to sneak away from the bomb, ready to get back to her team.

* * *

The sun had risen, and Junior had begun to inspect his troops. A smile spread across Blake's face, as her crosshair settled on the back of his head, ready to take the shot. Despite Weiss placing the bomb, Team RWBY had elected to snipe Junior, and then blow the place to kingdom come. As it had worked out, Junior didn't sleep in the garrison, so they would have had to wait anyway.

"I have the shot." She reported matter-of-factly, waiting for the command she so desperately wanted to hear.

"Take." Was all Ruby said, as Blake's smile widened and her finger squeezed down on the trigger.

A red puff of vapor escaped from the back of his head as he lurched forward, his blood leaving a nice mark on the front of the garrison.

"And goodbye garrison." Ruby remarked happily as her thumb pressed down on the detonator.

Nothing happened.

"Oh fuck, nonono." Ruby said, pressing the trigger repeatedly.

"Wish we had brought the E-Web." Weiss said, referring to the standard issue heavy repeating blaster that most commando squads carried. RWBY had decided against bringing it, but were now unequipped to deal with the high amount of enemy troopers coming towards them.

"Yeah, definitely should have brought the E-Web." She remarked as blaster fire began to fly into the trees, RWBY taking cover.

"This is RWBY actual, we require immediate evac, I repeat, immediate evac!" Ruby began barking into her comlink as Blake began to fire more rounds into the approaching onslaught of enemies. She decided to take out one of Junior's lieutenants, the one dressed in white. Her head snapped back as a plasma bolt entered her skull cavity, exiting with a spray of blood. Blake quickly took the sniper attachment off her gun, realizing that she needed to be using her default rifle to deal with the swarm of enemies.

"What the fuck happened here Yang?!" Ruby yelled, shooting at the horde of droids and mercenaries before ducking behind a tree, dodging several blaster bolts.

"This was not my fault, that charge was packed perfectly!" Yang complained as she slapped on her anti-armor attachment, firing grenades into her enemies.

Ruby began rapidly pressing the detonator again, her frustration growing. "Stupid. Piece. Of. Fucking. SHIT!" At her last obscenity, Ruby slammed the detonator into the tree trunk.

 _KABOOM!_

The girls were immediately knocked down, as what had once been a garrison was instantly disintegrated by Yang's bomb.

* * *

Miltia Malachite found herself face down in the dirt, her previous place of occupation having just been sent 50 meters in the sky. The droids were dead, as were all the mercs. The only reason she was alive was because she had sprinted towards the forest immediately, but at an angle, so she could flank whoever had assassinated her boss. _Poor Junior. And Melanie too._ She had seen her twin go down, probably sniped by the same asshole who had killed Junior. Tears began to well in her eyes, but she shoved the emotions aside. _I can grieve later, now is the time for vengeance._

Gripping her custom rifle, she rose unsteadily to her feet. All she could hear was a piercing ringing, and if the sharp pain in her left ear was any indicator, she had blown an eardrum. Feeling a wet sensation on the right side of her face, she brushed it with her fingers, coming back with blood on her fingertips. _Guess I blew them both._

She began to walk towards the treeline, limping. She looked at her left leg, and saw a piece of metal stuck into the outside of her thigh. _Shrapnel from a droid. Perfect._

Grimacing from the pain, she began to approach the forest, feeling not pain, nor sadness, but only a hunger for vengeance. After it was all done, then she would feel pain.

* * *

Yang groaned as she lay on her back, silence falling on the battlefield in the aftermath of the deafening explosion. She sat up, shaking her head.

Weiss was the first one to stand, albeit shakily. She looked at Yang, and then Ruby, before just shaking her head disapprovingly.

"I don't know whose fault that was, and I don't really care, but just know that whoever it was, you suck." Weiss said, her remark met by laughter from her friends.

"Well I guess we're done here." Ruby said, beginning to rise from behind the tree where she had been knocked on her ass.

It was then that Yang heard the most disgusting sound she had ever had the misfortune of hearing. It was the sound of a Verpine Shatter Rifle slug penetrating armor, and entering flesh.

It was the sound that accompanied Weiss falling to the ground, completely silent.

"Enemy contact!" Ruby barked, as Yang rushed to Weiss. She had fallen on her back and Yang struggled to get her helmet off.

Yang was barely aware of plasma fire streaming from Blake's location, and it seemed like more than necessary, but that wasn't important. What was important was saving the life of her teammate.

"The medpack. Get the fucking medpack!" Yang yelled as she tried to stop the bleeding. The round had entered through Weiss's side, where the armor was much thinner, to allow for range of motion.

"Talk to me here Weiss. Where are you right now?" Yang said, trying to keep her teammate focused, trying to keep her mind off the blood because _fuck_ that was a lot of blood.

"I'm on some shithole planet." Weiss wheezed, her breathing clearly impaired.

"Round entered her side, may have broken some ribs, possibly punctured a lung." Yang stated as Ruby joined her, medpack in hand. Blake was standing, keeping watch for any other surprises the team wasn't ready for.

Yang put pressure on the wound, feeling for any breaks, as Weiss yelped in pain.

"Yeah, definitely broken ribs. This punctured lungs gonna screw us if we aren't careful though." Yang said, holding her hand out, palm up. "Bio-foam."

Ruby handed her the bio-foam spray can, which was designed to fill holes in the body. Yang angled it into the wound, hoping to spray enough to stop the bleeding, but not enough that she filled the lung with the foam. If she did that, Weiss could suffocate.

"Sorry princess, but this one's gonna hurt." She said apologetically, spraying the foam, as Ruby got back on the comms.

"This is RWBY actual, I need that evac now! We have wounded, repeat, we have wounded." She went silent, before nodding.

"Evac's in the clearing with the farmhouse, we need to move." She relayed to her team, standing up.

"Come on Weiss, we need to move." Yang said, lifting Weiss up, and draping Weiss's left arm around her shoulders. They began to move towards the clearing, Blake walking behind them, rifle ready to take anyone on.

In the clearing was the greatest sight of Yang's life. A LAAT/i gunship, ready to extract them. They got over there as fast as they could, Weiss's armor stained with even more blood. There was a medic on board, and as soon as they were on he began to take a look at Weiss, while Yang recounted what happened. Blake and Ruby sat down as the gunship took off, happy to be off this planet.

"You're gonna be alright Weiss. You're gonna be just fine." Yang reassured her, as Weiss did something very strange.

She smiled.

* * *

"You know, this is what pirates do, right?" Pyrrha said, and Jaune began to laugh.

"No, we maintain a sense of style and personal hygiene that pirates could only help to match." Their pilot, Redwing, replied, causing Jaune to howl with laughter. Nora was laughing as well, and Ren was completely still, as if he was asleep.

Pyrrha was right though, they were partaking in pirate strategy. Team JNPR was sitting in a disguised commercial freighter, waiting for another disguised commercial freighter to jump into the system, so that they could open fire on them. The freighter had been associated with a large criminal organization that was plundering Republic trade routes, among other illegal activities. JNPR had been sent to take them out of the equation and obtain as much information on the organization as possible. Using pirate strategy on pirates.

And so they sat, waiting for their mark to enter the system, as they had been for the past two hours.

"Are we even sure that they'll come into this system?" Nora asked, having starting to grow impatient roughly one minute into the operation.

"Well intel said they would be, so take that as you will." Redwing stated, causing Nora to groan. They were only a week or so into the war, and Intel had already gained a reputation of being spotty at best.

JNPR had been drifting for a while now, cracking jokes while Nora continued to play heavy metal music. It was all very much against regulations, but Redwing seemed like a relaxed enough pilot, and Jaune didn't really care.

Jaune was seated next to Pyrrha, helmet off, also against regulations, with a smile plastered across his face. His armor was still covered with scorch marks from the battle on Geonosis, which was annoying Pyrrha for some reason. All through their training they had maintained clean armor, and since his was white, Jaune had always worked exceptionally hard to make sure it was spotless. But now it was as if he didn't care.

Nora was across from Jaune and Pyrrha, her fingers drumming to the beat of the music she had chosen. Ren sat next to her, his helmet off just like the rest of them, sitting completely still, eyes closed. If Pyrrha didn't know any better, she would assume he had fallen asleep. But that wasn't the case, since for as long as they had been a squad Pyrrha had known Ren to be like this. Always quiet before a mission, but when he needed to, he would switch on into the ruthless killing machine he was born to be.

"So Red, you do this type of thing often?" Jaune asked, trying to get to know the pilot more.

"Are you asking if I've flown a disguised freighter so I can attack other disguised freighters and send in a commando squad to board them?" Redwing said, pausing for a moment as if thinking about the missions he had flown in the past week. "No, can't say I have."

"Well no time like the present huh?" Jaune said, still smiling. This was a side of him that Pyrrha had never seen before. Back in training Jaune was quiet, and unsure of his abilities. But during Geonosis he had truly emerged as a leader, and shown confidence. It would seem this new Jaune was here to stay, and Pyrrha had no problem with that. _He is rather cute when he's being confident._ Pyrrha quickly snapped out of those thoughts, choosing to focus on the mission. There would be time after the mission for her to reflect on these feelings of hers.

"Contact about to jump into the system. Specs match the freighter we're looking for." Redwing stated, and the mood became serious.

"Sure would be embarrassing, hijacking a civilian freighter." Jaune said, his helmet in his hands.

"Yeah, but I would bet money that this is our ship. It's approaching in thirty seconds." Redwing said, cutting his comm feed as he got ready.

Immediately Nora stopped playing her music, Ren opened his eyes, and all four commandos put on their helmets, snapping them into place.

"Ten seconds. Going dark." Redwing said, cutting the lights inside and outside the ship.

Inside the holding area the only light was coming from the blue glow of the commando's visors, a sight Pyrrha felt was oddly reassuring, and deep inside her she felt a feeling she had identified during the battle of Geonosis. She was excited.

It was time to hunt.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys and gals, Heil96 here! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, and I'm really looking forward to the next few as well! We broke one thousand total views of RC RWBY, which is absolutely amazing! Thanks to every single one of you, I hadn't expected this much interest in the story! I know I kinda left the whole Weiss situation at a cliffhanger, but I felt like that was a good time to switch it up to JNPR. I finished my moncon, which means I can put my full attention back to this and my new OC fic, AtS. I want to give a shoutout to some of my friends from the r/RWBY discord server, namely /u/RavenBranwen, Bran, ImmolateDynamo, and Dragon. They are writing an awesome fic called The Misadventures of Team TWLT, and while I recommend that you go read it, I feel the need to warn you. It's satirical smut, and is written so poorly (on purpose), and with so many overpowered OC's (also intentional), that it's beautiful. It really earns the M rating, so don't give me a review that says "Holy shit my eyes are bleeding Heil96 why would you do this." So yeah, go check it out if you want, and if not, new chapter of RC RWBY will be posted Friday at around noon CST. That's all I've got, thanks for reading!  
**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby**

 **RC-1104 Weiss**

 **RC-1170 Blake**

 **RC-1126 Yang**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune**

 **RC-1163 Nora**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha**

 **RC-2223 Ren**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	9. Chapter 9- Spare Change

**Somewhere in space. 6 days after the Battle of Geonosis.**

"Enemy contact! Entering the system!" Redwing barked into the comms, and Jaune felt his heartrate quicken. The dropship was completely dark, save for the faint blue glow emitted from the commando's visor's. The ship began to move, and shudder as Redwing began to open fire.

"Hard contact!" The ship began to shake as the pirates returned fire. Redwing fired another salvo, and Jaune felt a tug in the bottom of his stomach as the ship accelerated.

"Enemy engines and weapons systems disabled! Moving in now!"

The Republic ship, disguised as a Labyrinth Bread company freighter, pulled alongside the pirate ship, and sealed itself to it.

"Get a charge on now!" Jaune barked, as Nora set a breaching charge on the door that now connected their ship to the enemy's. Unlike typical breaching charges that just blasted the door's lock, this one was designed to blow the door off entirely.

"Ready!" Nora relayed, as she backed up from the door. They had to be careful setting off explosives in such close proximity if they were to avoid any friendly casualties.

"Hit!" Jaune yelled as he detonated the charge, rushing through the door first. Jaune believed in leading from the front, and he showed that in situations like these.

On the other side of the doorway was a mercenary, stunned slightly, but with his gun still raised. It was a close quarters situation, and Jaune instinctively slammed his fist under the merc's jaw, his vibroblade ejecting into the merc's throat. His eyes widened as Jaune twisted, then yanked his arm free, a spray of crimson following his blade out of the gurgling merc's throat. Jaune moved forward wordlessly, confident that his team was behind him. He turned a corner and saw a merc rushing him with a knife, but Jaune wasn't a fool.

He raised his rifle and put a burst into the criminal's chest, the momentum of his charge carrying the limp body past Jaune, slamming into a wall. Jaune ran up to a door, which seemed to be locked.

"Looks like this is the bridge guys, remember, keep your fire on target and no explosives. We need to salvage all we can here." Jaune ordered, turning towards his squad.

"Hey Sarge, what's in the room?" Nora said, her rifle trained on an unmarked door that was still sealed.

"Don't know. I'll check it out." Jaune crept towards the door, his rifle level, in case anything jumped out at him. He walked towards the console, ready to slice open the door, but to his surprise, it opened for him anyway. _Unlocked. Weird._

Jaune slowly walked inside, his squad directly behind him. The room seemed empty, and Jaune began to walk out with the rest of JNPR, when they heard a voice that was feminine, yet robotic. All of JNPR quickly turned around, their guns trained on the origin of the voice.

"Salutations!"

* * *

 **Onboard the** _ **Beacon**_ **. One standard week after the Battle of Geonosis.**

Weiss felt like absolute shit. She had been in a bacta pod for the past day, her wounds healing. She _hated_ the bacta pods. Floating in a glass cage, with nothing to do but breathe in, and count how many bubbles go past your face while you're in there. 5,494, by the way.

She was out now, walking towards the mess hall, where she suspected she would find her squad. She hurt all over, but her side hurt the worst. Even though her wounds had been patched up, she still felt an ache where the slug had entered her body. Even worse, she was incredibly hungry. Not just hungry, but hungry for real food. She wandered about the _Beacon,_ trying to find her way to the cafeteria.

She eventually found it, and walked in, looking for her friends. She found them sitting at a table in the corner of the mess hall, secluded from the rest of the troopers. They had probably picked this place at Blake's insistence, trying to keep away from everyone else's judgement. _A shame she has to hide like that._

They seemed to be deep in conversation, but that stopped when Ruby noticed Weiss approaching the table. She stood up, and rushed Weiss, who braced herself for the impact. A tight hug enveloped her, as Yang and Blake stood up and walked over.

"RC 1104 reporting for duty." Weiss said in her best impersonation of a monotone trooper's voice, as Ruby punched her on the shoulder lightly, laughing.

"How are you feeling?" Ruby asked, letting go of her friend.

"I'm alright, just a bit hungry." The sound of her stomach growling cut through the air, and Weiss grimaced slightly.

"Okay check that, I'm starving." She admitted, as Ruby busted out into laughter.

"Come on, I'll go with you through the line." Yang said, motioning for Weiss to follow her.

They walked towards the line, and Weiss grabbed a tray, as Yang just stood behind her, her food already at the table.

"So how are you?" Weiss asked, as she pointed towards what food she wanted. _Oooh, they have nerf burgers._

"Pretty good. Nothing much going on." Yang said, shrugging nonchalantly.

Weiss just turned, and stared at Yang, who began to feel uncomfortable, as she could guess what this was about.

"You know what I mean. I said we would talk about it later, and I meant it."

"I'm fine with us talking about it, just not here, okay? Not now." Yang said, breaking eye contact as she looked at her shoes awkwardly.

Weiss simply nodded, before getting the rest of her food, and walking back to the table.

"So Weiss." Ruby said, chewing on her food. "We were discussing the mission."

"I miss anything good?" Weiss said, beginning to tear into her burger.

"We were discussing the matter of kill count for the mission."

"I did kill our target, and his two lieutenants." Blake chimed in, chewing on some pasta.

"Yeah but you sniped them. No style points." Yang shot back, a fry in her hand.

"I sniped two of them, but I unloaded two clips into the bitch that shot Weiss."

"I'll give you points for overkill since you cooked her until she was well done, but still no style points." Blake just sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Besides," Yang continued, "I had the highest kill count with _my_ bomb."

"I detonated the bomb." Ruby said, swallowing her food.

"I placed it." Weiss added, as Yang glared at her.

"So you guys split those kills three ways." Blake said, smiling.

"The bomb detonated late. That should cost Yang points." Ruby said, pointing her fork accusingly at Yang, who shrugged.

"Do we even know how many we took out with the blast?" Weiss said as she put her burger down.

"Nah, no fucking clue." Yang added, as Weiss threw her hands in the air in exasperation.

"Then why does it matter?"

Blake, Ruby, and Yang looked at each other, and shrugged before Blake spoke up.

"For fun?"

The table erupted in laughter, and Weiss couldn't help suppress the grin that enveloped her face.

It felt good to be back.

* * *

Ren considered himself to be a calm individual. It was essential, to balance out Nora's craziness. But at the moment, even he was having issues keeping his cool.

"Identify yourself." Jaune said, his blaster rifle pointed at the head of the strange sight in front of him.

"My designation is P3N-Y." It said, before perking up. "But you can call me Penny!"

'Penny' was, as best as Ren could guess, some form of protocol droid that had been modified for combat. She was painted black, with bright neon green accents, and had blades fixed to the undersides of her arms, and had blasters attached to the top of her arms, on her wrists. She looked oddly human-like, with fake orange hair on her head, bright green eyes scanning the four clones in front of her.

"Great, a fucking synth." Nora muttered, as Penny's head snapped to stare directly at Nora.

"That's offensive, _clone_."

"Who the fuck are you calling clone?" Nora shouted, her rifle pointed at Penny's face, as Penny's blasters began to glow green, charging up.

"Nora, stand down. Penny, if you could stop antagonizing my soldiers, this would go smoother." Jaune ordered, his rifle still trained at the droid.

"What is your prime directive?" Jaune demanded, and Ren could sense the unease in his voice.

"My prime directive is to AssIS-." Penny's voice began to cut out, and fluctuate, as Ren crept towards the console that was tucked away in the secret room that Penny had been hiding in, behind a false wall.

The console that Penny was still plugged into.

He began to cycle through the list of commands on the screen, before finding the one he was looking for.

 _Deactivate._

Penny's head slumped forward, and the neon green on her body dimmed.

"Boss, what was that?" Pyrrha said unsteadily, clearly disturbed by what she had seen.

"No idea. Let's take her back with us, see if command has any use for her."

"What's taking you so long Juniper? You guys stop for coffee or something?" Redwing came in over the comms, clearly growing impatient.

"We're about to assault the bridge now." Jaune stated, as he began to walk towards the door.

"Good, the meter's running."

* * *

Yang had been doing fine. While Weiss had been recovering, the rest of RWBY had time to kill. Yang had taken the opportunity to do everything she could to keep her mind off of Qiilura, and she had spent most of her time working out. She found it easy to ignore her thoughts if she was doing something physical, so she had spent almost no time sitting still. Unfortunately, she still had to sleep, and lying motionless in a bed was the perfect time the thoughts to creep into her head. _Murderer. You killed them._

She had been having a good time in the mess with Blake and Ruby, talking about literally anything but the massacre, but then Weiss had to go and bring it up. The rest of their time in the cafeteria had gone well enough, but after they had finished, Yang told her team that she was going to work out, and walked towards the gym onboard the _Beacon._ She was unsurprised when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see none other than Weiss.

"Yang, I think we should have that talk now."

"Weiss, I'd really rather not right now."

"Yang, you're never going to want to. The sooner we do this, the sooner you can go back to sleeping normally."

Yang cocked her head. _Weiss shouldn't know about that, she was in the medbay._

"Blake told me. And I'm sure Ruby noticed too." Weiss explained, a soft expression on her face.

Weiss walked towards the gym, and walked into one of the rooms reserved for private workout sessions when you didn't want to deal with people. There were three troopers in the room already, but they cleared out when Weiss and Yang walked in. They could feel the tension in the air, and decided that pissing off two commandos, even if they weren't in armor, was a bad idea.

"So how are you really?" Weiss asked, leaning against the wall.

"I'm fine if I don't think about it. I do stuff to keep my mind off of it." Yang said, arms crossed, making it very clear that she didn't want to be here.

"That's no way to operate Yang."

"What do you want me to do Weiss?"

"I want you to talk to me about how you feel."

"How I feel? I feel like a fucking murderer, because there were five more corpses when we left that godforsaken planet then there should have been! I feel like a fucking failure, because if I hadn't slipped and fell, those people would still be alive! If I had made sure that charge had been set up right, you wouldn't have almost died! And most of all, I sure as shit don't feel like the soldier I'm supposed to be!" Her voice cracked at her last admittance, her head down, and shoulder slumped.

"I didn't want this Weiss. Even back on Kamino, I had always hoped that there would never be a war for us to fight, so we could just go out into the galaxy and live."

"There's always after the war." Weiss said quietly.

"After the war?! The only way we're leaving is in a body bag, actually no fuck that, we don't get body bags do we? We get left in the field, no burial, no memorial, no fucking nothing! Left to rot like the fucking _tools_ we are. Do you know how many commandos died in Geonosis?!"

"I-." Weiss began to respond, but was cut off.

"4,982!" Yang yelled, letting the floodgates open.

"What are the odds that we make it through one month of this war, let alone the entire war?" Yang said, not expecting an answer.

She opened her mouth, about to go off on another tangent, but she was stopped short when Weiss hugged her.

"Uh, Weiss?"

"You need to stop worrying about things you can't control. They're only going to tear you apart. Worry about what you can affect, like getting through this awful war." Weiss said, before pulling back, her hands on Yang's arms.

"We'll get through this Yang. Together."

* * *

"Charge set!" Pyrrha barked as she dashed to her right and leaned against the door frame, standing right behind Jaune. She felt the charge go off, and Nora tossed a flashbang grenade into the room, as Jaune rushed in. Pyrrha was right behind him, her rifle instinctively snapping to a merc who was standing up straight, stunned by the grenade. She put two a burst into his chest, before moving forward. A merc stood up behind a terminal, the group's leader, if his large blaster was any indication. He never got the chance to fire, as a blue bolt pierced his skull, and he fell backwards, smoke trailing from a hole in his forehead.

"Clear." Pyrrha said, as the rest of her squad repeated the word, and they all eased up slightly.

"Redwing, this is Ninety. Bridge is cleared, we are beginning to pull data off of the terminal in here. Jaune said, pointing at said terminal. Ren nodded, and walked towards it.

"You have much of a waiting party?"

Jaune kicked the limp body at his feet, rifle still pointed at it just in case.

"Nah, nothing too big."

"Ren, see if you can find anything on there about that droid." Jaune ordered, while Pyrrha absent mindedly walked over to the merc leader.

She crouched down next to his body, examining him.

"Kind of ugly, isn't he?" Nora said, standing behind Pyrrha.

"Plasma damage sure didn't help."

"Pyr, Nora, with me." Jaune said, and the two commandos jogged over to him while Ren continued to pull data off the terminal.

"We need to move her." Jaune said, motioning at the droid, making Nora and Pyrrha groan.

They lifted Penny up, and carried her to the ship, making sure to carefully disconnect the cables attached to her.

"You get a droid to replace two-three? It'll probably talk more." Redwing remarked as the trio carried Penny into the ship, setting her down and leaning her against a wall.

"And here I was going to tip well." Ren said over the comms, causing Redwing to laugh.

"In all seriousness, gratuities are accepted." Redwing said, tapping a jar that was labeled 'Tips.' To Jaune's amusement, it actually had lien in it.

"I've got the data we want Jaune, on my way back to the ship." Ren reported, beginning to jog back to his squad.

"So are we blowing the ship up? Or just leaving it to float around in space?" Nora asked, clearly wanting to blow it up.

"Nah, we'll leave it here. That's what pirates do, and it's what people will think this is." Redwing replied, as their ship detached from the pirate's.

The four commandos sat down, taking their helmets off, happy to have completed the mission.

"Fucking hell Ninety you look like death himself, you know that?" Redwing quipped, causing Pyrrha to study Jaune's armor. Besides the dirt and scorch marks that he had accumulated on Geonosis, there was blood on his left gauntlet and his chest plate, from the merc he had stabbed in the throat.

Jaune just sighed, before looking at Penny, who was still leaning against a bulkhead.

"Man, Intel is gonna have a field day with this one."

'Your problem Sergeant, not mine." Redwing replied, as the squad started laughing, Nora turning her music back on over the comms.

"Another successful mission JNPR." Jaune said, grinning, as the ship took off, taking the squad back home.

* * *

 **Hey guys, Heil96 back once again! I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and I think it's one of my best so far! I think it had a really good balance of combat, emotion, and story! Also we got to meet P3N-Y, who will have a minor part in the story. HUUUUUGE shoutout to /u/Breads_Labyrinth for all their help with fleshing out Penny and how I would fit her into the Star Wars universe. I know you wanted her to be an astromech droid, but I'm shelving that idea for someone else farther down the line. Also I've been kind of hinting at it for a few chapters now, but I'm considering putting some romantic pairings into this story. Now I still haven't made up my mind, and I want to make one thing incredibly clear. Any romance, if I even put it in here, will be a minor plot detail. This will not become a fluff fic, it will stay a darker combat oriented story. That being said, feel free to leave a review letting me know how you feel about romance entering the story. Hell, feel free to leave a review anyway! I do respond to them! A couple things to point out is that the number that Yang cites for Republic Commando casualties during the Battle of Geonosis is pulled from canon. I did not think to myself, Heil, think up a massive number and slap it on in there. Personally I think that number seems excessive, but I am trying to keep this close to the story. Also you may have noticed that I started to put dates and locations at the start of the chapter, which is something I plan on continuing so you, the reader, can keep track with just what the hell is going on. That's all I've got for today, thank you so much for reading! Next chapter will be on Monday at noon CST!**

 **Guest Review response:**

 **Guys and Gals, you cheeky bugger.**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby**

 **RC-1104 Weiss**

 **RC-1170 Blake**

 **RC-1126 Yang**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune**

 **RC-1163 Nora**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha**

 **RC-2223 Ren**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	10. Chapter 10- Final Pieces

**A/N: TENTH CHAPTER HERE WE GO WHOOOOOOO! For real, thank you all so much for everything, and here's to many more.**

* * *

" _RC-1183 has shown great skill when using a sniper rifle. She clearly prefers to perform overwatch for her squad with her sniper in the exercises we have run. However, I believe that in the upcoming role assignments that she would be the best fit for squad leader. Out of her, operatives 1104, 1170, and 1126, she is clearly the soldier best suited for combat leadership. I predict that Four-Oh will have some issues with this at first, but I have faith in Weiss to overcome this, and Tai, Raven and Summer agree with me. Sergeant Branwen, out."- Sergeant Qrow Branwen, in an audio log report. Kamino, 5 years BBG._

 **Galactic City, Coruscant. Police Department, Special Forces Division. Twelve days ABG**

Qrow Branwen was unhappy. He radiated the emotion, making everyone in his path clear out quickly. He walked up to a security terminal, staring at the screen, and more importantly, the gruesome images it displayed. A young patrol officer stood next to him, clearly nervous.

"Play it back for me."

The video started over, showing the interior of one of the trams that ran all over the planet. The grainy footage showed that there were a few passengers, along with a couple troopers, chatting to one another. The footage shook before turning white, the feed lost.

"Show me the images they got of the scene."

Still images flooded the screen, showing rubble strewn across what used to be a tram station. There were small fires, and the occasional body part. Some of the body parts were covered in the white plastoid armor that signified that they had belonged to members of the Republic Army.

"What's the tally on fatalities?"

"20 civilians dead sir, and 5 troopers."

"I thought it was 19 civvies?"

"One of them died in the hospital yesterday, sir."

Qrow sighed, turning away from the screen. He began to walk away, motioning for the officer to follow him.

"What's your name kid?"

"Private Carter, sir."

"Alright Carter, what are your thoughts on this attack?"

That threw the officer off, clearly he hadn't expected anything he thought to be of value.

"My thoughts, sir?"

Qrow sighed impatiently, trying to keep from taking out any aggression on the poor kid. It wouldn't help the situation any.

"Yeah, what you think about the attack. Gut feeling, intuition, anything really."

"Well sir, if you ask me, it doesn't make much sense."

Qrow paused, stopping in front of the door out of the building.

"Elaborate, please."

"Well sir, with all due respect to the dead, they hit a small time target. On a planet this densely crowded, they could have easily killed hundreds, if not thousands. Why attack a small time tram and only kill 25 people?"

"Because it wasn't about the casualties, it was about the message." Qrow said, walking out the door.

"What message is that?" Carter yelled after him.

"That no place is safe." Qrow shot back, before melting into the crowd.

* * *

 **RAS** _ **Beacon.**_ **Thirteen days ABG.**

"Come on guys, let's move!"

Ruby was growing impatient. She was standing in the bay area of a dropship, waiting for her squad to join her.

"We're coming Sarge!" Yang called out, running out towards her leader, Weiss and Blake right behind her.

Team RWBY was partaking in the elimination of Separatist assets on the planet Fest, a planet covered almost completely in ice. It possessed remarkable ore deposits however, so the Separatists had set up shop.

"Come on guys, JNPR's already on their way to their objective!" Ruby said once more, as her squad joined her.

"We're good!" She said into the comms as the pilot began to take off, the dropship doors closing.

Team JNPR had already left, tasked with the destruction of a Separatist mining facility. Several commando squads had been sent out, like Iota squad, which was made up of the three surviving members of BRNZ and the lone survivor of NDGO. Teams made up of members of different squads were becoming more and more common as the war progressed, and the commandos took more and more casualties.

"I bet we get back to the _Beacon_ before JNPR does." Yang said, helmet off as she sat down next to Weiss.

"They do have a head start." Blake reminded her, seated next to Ruby.

"Yeah but we're Team RWBY. We got this." Yang said proudly, as Ruby felt a familiar tug in her stomach that signaled that the dropship had left the hangar, beginning their descent towards the planet.

* * *

 **Fest. Thirteen days ABG**

"Hit the deck!" Nora cried out, as Jaune threw himself to the ground, a rocket flying over him, exploding behind him.

"Enemy rocket emplacement. At our two!" Pyrrha yelled, peppering the rocket turret with plasma fire as it reloaded.

Jaune picked himself up, shooting at the turret, noticing a large object sailing towards it.

It exploded violently as the anti-armor round Nora shot at it detonated the large supply of reserve rockets, creating a large crater where the emplacement had once been.

"Holy shit! Did you see that one Ren?" Nora said happily, as the team moved into the mining facility.

"Couldn't have missed it if I tried Nora." Ren said, and Jaune could have sworn he heard a smile in the man's voice.

Team JNPR was moving through a snowy compound, headed towards the main building, where most of the mining equipment would be stored. Team Iota had already completed their objective of eliminating the Separatists anti-air weaponry, along with their communications network, having been dropped in a few hours prior to JNPR's arrival. Iota was now on standby in case JNPR or RWBY needed help, or got incapacitated during the mission, requiring Iota to finish the job.

"What're the odds the door's locked?" Pyrrha said as they approached the entrance to the main facility, stopping outside of it.

"Pretty good. No point ringing the doorbell." Jaune said, nodding at Nora, who began to set a breaching charge on the door.

* * *

"Aren't you nutjobs cold back there?"

I smile, before replying over the comms.

"Nah, we commandos are big and tough. I guess this would be a little chilly to me if I were a pilot."

All I can see is Redwing giving me the bird, and I laugh. We've got the doors open on the dropship, and the cold air is blowing through. Our armor has temperature regulation anyway, so I can't feel it. We've got the doors open in case we need to make an emergency exit.

Redwing is skimming over the surface, and he's going fast. Truth be told, I'm not sure how he even sees where he's going, the sky is filled with snow. Just our luck we'd be assaulting a factory in the middle of a snowstorm.

"Hey Red. How can you see where you're going?" Weiss calls out. I guess she noticed it too.

"Who said I can see where I'm going?" He shoots back, and I hear Weiss mutter that she's sorry she asked.

"Hey guys. What's the last thing that'll go through Red's mind if he crashes us?"

"Yang…" Ruby says, trying to tell me not to finish the joke. As if.

"The afterburners."

Weiss just sighs, but at least Redwing is laughing. It's important to laugh in times like these.

You know, truth be told, it's weird what your mind focuses on when you're in a potentially life-or-death situation. Right now I can't stop thinking about the talk Weiss and I had, and how good it felt when she had hugged me. That was about a week ago, and it had been business as usual for us after that, seeing as this was our second mission since then.

I've got metal music blasting, which had kind of become a tradition for us. I talked to Nora about it, and we agreed that the music was necessary to get in the zone before a mission. Weiss had stopped complaining, and Ruby had never said anything about it, so I just keep playing.

"Get ready. Boots on the ground in thirty."

I cut the music, sighing as a guitar solo had started. It's _always_ when the solo starts.

We're on this stupid frozen planet because apparently the Seps are manufacturing droids made of some metal called phrik, which is apparently lightsaber resistant. Personally, it seems like a load of shit to me, but I just go wherever this army tells me to.

Red stops the ship, and we pile out, immediately knee deep in snow. Fucking great.

"Yang, why don't you use our new toy to greet our hosts?" Ruby says, and that's got me grinning. I heft our brand new Plex rocket launcher, and boy is this thing a marvel of engineering.

"Hope they aren't made of phrik." Weiss says, and that's got me thinking. If they're made of phrik, would we even be able to kill them. I cut that train of thought off when I start thinking of phrik SBD's, cuz that's gonna haunt my dreams for eternity.

I pull the trigger, and the rocket sails into the first line of droids. No, they're definitely not made of phrik.

I look over to my left, and see Weiss standing there, sniper out, taking potshots at the droids. She looks good, like her armor was made of ice itself, and she is purely the embodiment of snow and ice, the wrath of the cold.

Yeah, my mind focuses on some weird shit when I'm in combat.

* * *

Pyrrha was getting a little sick of the Separatists shit. She dove to the side as yet another rocket turret fired on JNPR.

"Ren, hit it!" Jaune cried out, focusing his fire on a super battle droid, with Nora assisting him.

Ren slapped on his anti-armor attachment, and hit the rocket tower dead on. This one must have had quite a lot of reserve ammo, because the resulting explosion not only destroyed the super, but also half the room.

"How much farther until we get to the core?" Nora asked impatiently, and Pyrrha could guess as to why.

"What's the matter, that explosion not enough for you?" She said, nudging her friend with her elbow.

"I mean yeah, it was okay, but this place is gonna go boom in a whole new way."

"To answer your question Nora, we should be there soon." Jaune said, walking through the hole where a door had once been.

"Actually, it's right there." Jaune said, pointing towards the center of the room.

Unlike larger facilities, the mining complex had a smaller fusion core that was being used for power. But just like all the others, this one would leave a hell of a crater if given a gentle push with high explosives.

"Nora, start setting a charge. We'll cover you."

The three commandos got set behind cover while Nora placed a charge, happily humming to herself.

Pyrrha was scanning the room with her sniper, feeling quite uneasy.

"Shouldn't there be droids or something in here?" She said, beginning to fear that they had walked into a trap.

"Iota did hit their comms. Maybe they don't know we're here." Jaune said, also feeling uneasy. This shouldn't be this easy.

"Why are we blowing this facility up?" Ren said unexpectedly, shocking Pyrrha.

"Questioning the use of explosives? Heresy!" Nora said cheerfully, continuing to place her charge.

"No I mean, if RWBY is blowing up the factory, how come we aren't just securing the area so the Republic can take the ore? There's no need to do this." He said adamantly, and what he was saying made sense. Pyrrha was beginning to feel like Ren was right, and that this was a waste of potentially valuable resources.

"Asset denial I guess? Listen I just got the orders, I didn't make them. If you want to question how the Republic does things, I'm sure you could write Supreme Chancellor Salem a letter." Jaune said, not used to questioning orders.

"Charge is set boss."

"We'll talk about this later, right now we need to get extracted." Jaune said, motioning for his team to exit the area.

For some reason, Pyrrha felt more uneasy now than she did with the possibility of an ambush. The clones had been raised to be absolutely loyal, and she had never questioned orders. Hearing Ren do it, and do it so openly, was something that would trouble her for a while, she could tell.

* * *

"The fuck are lizards doing here?" Weiss yelled out, and Ruby felt irritation grow because once again, Intel had missed something, like that the Seps had Trandoshan mercs defending the factory.

RWBY was inside the factory, and were making their way to the main reactor, having already sabotaged the droid assembly lines, and uploading a rather nasty virus that cause the droids to keep spinning in circles. Weiss had quite a laugh putting that one together.

But right now, the only thing that mattered was that there were Trandos charging the squad, and Yang was out of position. She was crouching behind a crate, and a Trando was about to turn the corner and level her with his gun.

He turned the corner, and Yang grabbed the barrel with one hand, pulling it away from him, while her other hand punched the merc in the face. He staggered back, and Yang quickly turned the gun around and fired it point blank into his face. A large portion of his face disappeared, with a spray of blood and gore splattering the wall behind him.

"Holy shit these guys use shotguns? That is so metal!" Yang cried out, firing the shotgun at the other mercs. They seemed surprised to see a commando killing them with their own weaponry, as the rest of the squad cut down the 'lizards' as Weiss had called them.

"Got a souvenir there Yang?" Blake asked, as Yang bent down to pick ammo off the corpse of the merc the gun had previously belonged to.

"Oh you better believe it."

"Aren't Trandos cold-blooded? The hell are they doing on an _ice planet_." Weiss questioned, reloading her rifle.

"Maybe their armor is heated?" Ruby said, unsure of her answer. In all honestly she had no idea why there were mercs, she just wanted to destroy this facility and get out of here.

RWBY entered the room containing the reactor mainframe, and immediately busted out in laughter. There were turrets in the room, and while normally that would have been cause for concern, they were currently spinning around rapidly, firing in every direction. They had clearly been doing this for a while, as all the Trandos in the room were dead, cut down by friendly fire.

"Okay guys, let's put them out of their misery." Ruby said as her eyes began to tear up, and the squad opened fire, quickly destroying the turrets.

"I'd say that virus is a keeper Weiss." Blake said happily, stepping over a corpse.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to keep it handy." Weiss replied, beginning to tap into the mainframe.

"Did the turrets hit the terminal?" Yang asked, nudging one of the body's with her boot.

"Yeah, but the damage looks minimal."

Everyone but Weiss milled around, nothing to do in a room filled with dead bodies.

"Finished!"

"Okay guys, let's get the hell out of here before this place gets FUBAR." Ruby said, motioning for her team to exit the room, as a voice came over the factory intercom, warning all personnel to evacuate before the reactor blew.

Ruby smiled at the irony. "Don't worry about us, we'll be out of here in no time."

* * *

 **Nightclub in Coruscant. 13 days ABG.**

Sun was having an awful time. He was in a nightclub, surrounded by loud people, unable to hear himself think due to loud music. It was approaching midnight, and he had spent all night chatting up a woman at the bar. Sun had allowed his blonde hair to grow out, and was dressed in jeans and a white collared shirt, the shirt open so that his abs were exposed. His tail was wrapped around his waist, concealed so that no one would have any reason to recognize him just in case. You didn't become one of the best ARC troopers in the army by not taking precautions.

He was talking to the woman, but not really. He was simply spouting out information he had memorized, while nodding when she spoke, laughing when she told some stupid joke. She had been drinking quite a bit, and had seemingly not noticed that Sun was still working on his first drink, not relishing the thought of inhibiting his functionality with alcohol. Leave the drinking to Sergeant Qrow, Sun was just fine without it.

"This club is kind of lame. Want to come back to my place?" The woman asked. Was her name Maria? Sun couldn't remember, seeing as it wasn't important information. She was just a means to an end, nothing else.

He just nodded, following her as she walked out the door of the club.

* * *

 **Maria's Apartment. 14 days ABG.**

As soon as the door closed behind him Sun was assaulted by the woman, her lips pressed up against his. They remained like this for what seemed like an eternity, before Sun pulled back, noting the look of pure lust in her eyes.

"You know, it is a shame." Sun said, as the woman began to take off her shirt.

"What's a shame?" She said, before gasping as a knife entered her throat, Sun's hand on her mouth. Just in case.

"You were kind of pretty." He whispered, ripping the knife through her neck, slowly lowering her limp body to the ground.

He looked down at his shirt, sighing in exasperation. "You know, I listened to you drone on for fucking hours, the least you could do is not get blood all over my nice white shirt."

He stepped over her body, entering her bedroom. No, it wasn't in here.

He looked back into the living room, and noticed her datapad lying on the counter that was also a part of the kitchen.

"Quite a nice place you have here. Seems a bit too nice to have bought with the money from your job." He said to no one in particular. He picked up the datapad, and began searching through the files. Apparently her name was not Maria, but Jane. Whether or not she had lied to Sun, or he had just not paid enough attention, was up in the air at this point.

Sun smirked when he came across a folder with a particularly strong encryption.

"Now what would you be hiding behind something this strong." He mused, as he slid his data stick into the port, and let the decoder program do its work. Say what you will about Republic Intelligence, but they knew how to put together a hell of a code breaker.

As the program went to work, Sun sat down and began to key in a code into his personal comlink.

"Qrow, it's Sun. Files are being decrypted right now, I need extraction. I'll send you my coordinates." Sun sent the coordinates, before quickly contemplating calling Neptune.

Neptune was somewhere in Galactic City, Sun knew that much. Sage was off planet, hunting down some particularly nasty Separatist leaders, and Sun didn't actually know where Scarlet was, all he knew was that Scarlet said "if I told you you wouldn't believe me, so I'll send you some pictures." Sun had no idea what that meant, but he was excited to hear the stories that Scar would no doubt have to tell. Being ARC troopers, the members of SSSN could and would be deployed separate of one another, as ARC's were expected to be able to complete missions by themselves.

With a chime from the datapad, Sun saw that the files were done being decrypted. As he began to download them, he noticed their contents. _Qrow is gonna love this._

"You should have known better than letting me in Jane, seeing as you are a part of a terrorist organization." Sun said, chuckling as the program began to wipe the datapad clean after the files got transferred.

"Files are done Qrow. I'll be waiting on the roof." Sun said as he stripped his bloody shirt off, stepping over the corpse and the rapidly growing pool of blood beneath it. _I'll have to call Neptune some other time._

* * *

 **A/N: Qrow hype! Sun hype! Hey guys, Heil96 back again, bringing you a kind of different chapter of RC RWBY. I hopped around perspectives a bit, and even did some first person from Yang! There won't be many instances of first person in this story, just the rare occasion. If you liked it, or if you hated it, hit me with a review or shoot me a PM, I take those things seriously! Qrow and the members of Team SSSN are officially a part of this story, and this is a reveal I've been waiting to do since the first chapter! Personally I think Qrow and Kal Skirata would have gotten along quite well, those crazy drunks. Qrow and SSSN will be a major part of the story, and we only have one major character left to bring in. I'm excited for him/her too, and I think you'll like their addition into this story. Along with the addition of dates and times that I began implementing last chapter, this chapter I added something else. Diary entries! The first few will be psych evaluations of the main eight, so you can get an even better grasp on their personality. After that, it will be everything from conversations to personal journals that the commandos keep. Also I dropped a huge bomb in this chapter in the form of Salem, because holy shit that just writes itself. The Jedi will have a small part in this story, much smaller than in the RC novels because I'd much rather write about the commandos. I want to talk about Team Iota. While teams like Iota will be mentioned, do not expect them to appear in this story. Teams like Iota are my attempt to show what would happen in the event of a squad member death, and because trying to combine team names like NDGO and BRNZ is a pain in my ass. That's all I've got this chapter, see you on Friday, around noon CST! As always, thanks for reading!**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1104 Weiss, Private**

 **RC-1170 Blake, Private**

 **RC-1126 Yang, Private**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1163 Nora, Private**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha, Private**

 **RC-2223 Ren, Private**

 **Team SSSN**

 **ARC S-11 Sun, Captain Rank**

 **ARC S-07 Scarlet, Lieutenant Rank**

 **ARC S-12 Sage, Sergeant Rank**

 **ARC S-10 Neptune, Lieutenant Rank**

 **Other**

 **Qrow Branwen, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant in the GAR**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	11. Chapter 11- Black Ops

" _RC-1104 did not take 83's promotion well, as we expected. However, I had a talk with her in private about the situation, and it has been resolved. Obvious personality issues aside, Oh-Four is a model soldier. She shown clear proficiency in hacking and slicing into hardened security systems. Note: I advise we remove the terminal from the living quarters, Weiss and Velvet have been gambling on who can breach the secure Kaminoan mainframe. While amusing at first, the progress they have made is beginning to worry me. Weiss has also done quite well in first aid exercises, outclassing her comrades in all things medical. Sergeant Xiao Long, out."- Audio Log report by Tai-Yang Xiao Long. Kamino, 5 years BBG._

 **RAS** _ **Beacon.**_ **14 days ABG**

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Sergeant Branwen?"

Jedi Master Ozpin sat behind a desk, a steaming mug of coffee in front of him, as he calmly stared at the man in front of him. He was an older man, with a head full of white hair, a pair of glasses resting on his nose. he was dressed in simple robes, a reminder of his status.

"Tell me, General Ozpin, are you aware of the terror attacks on Coruscant?"

Qrow Branwen was anxiously drumming his fingers on his knee, instinctively nervous to be around a Jedi. Mandalorians and Jedi had a history, and a bloody one at that.

"No, I'm afraid I haven't. Been a bit busy with all this." Ozpin replied, gesturing towards the room they were in, making it clear what his priorities were.

"Well sir, in the last two weeks since the war began, there have been two terror attacks on Coruscant. Both are small targets. A tram station, or a small grocery store. Both attacks were explosive in nature, and we believe that they are connected. Now while both attacks only had around a dozen casualties, we are afraid that the attackers will begin to destroy bigger targets. Cause some real damage."

"That sounds terrible Sergeant. Unfortunately anti-terror isn't my specialty."

"That's the thing General. I'm aware just how much you have on your plate, so I'm offering to take this one out."

"What are you saying?"

Qrow leaned forward, knowing that this next moment was pivotal.

"I'm saying that I can deal with this."

"You, one man, can take out a terror cell in the heart of the Republic?"

"Not alone. I'll need help. And that's where you come in."

Ozpin just sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"I need you to allow teams RWBY, JNPR, and members of SSSN to come to Coruscant with me."

"First, let's just ignore the fact that you're asking me to dispatch two commando squads, and an ARC team, for this op. Why exactly do you want these specific teams? Why not Iota, or Gamma?"

"Team's RWBY and JNPR preformed the best in these form of exercises in training, and they share a unique chemistry, making them the best selection."

"And SSSN? Why them?"

"I know what Sage and Scarlet are doing, so I'm only asking for Sun and Neptune."

Ozpin leaned forward, a stern look on his face.

"The locations of operatives Sage and Scarlet are classified. You are not supposed to know where they are."

"I have my ways. So what do you say?"

Ozpin sat back into his chair, rubbing his temple, as if all of a sudden a headache had befallen him. Qrow wouldn't blame him if he had gotten a headache, actually. Qrow was known to cause those.

"What will this operation entail?"

"Complete black-ops. No one knows where we are, or what we're doing. Do you Jedi have a no-prisoner policy?"

Ozpin looked genuinely disgusted at that question, and Qrow feared he had gone too far.

"Of course not!" Ozpin said indignantly.

"We're implementing one. We'll need supplies too. Can I count on the GAR to foot the bill?"

"Yes, but if I see an expensive steak dinner on the receipt, you and I are going to have a serious discussion."

That actually made Qrow laugh, which surprised him about as much as it surprised Ozpin. _Maybe this Jedi isn't so bad._

"Will that be all, Sergeant Qrow?"

Qrow stood up and walked away, eager to get to work.

"Yes, sir."

 _Calling a Jedi sir? I'm going soft._

* * *

 **Kamino. 10 Years BBG**

"What the fuck."

It was pouring rain outside, Qrow could see it through the windows. He could see the flash of lightning, and even if he couldn't hear the thunder through the soundproofed walls, he could feel it through the floor. Apparently it only stopped raining on Kamino a few days out of the year, but the poor weather wasn't the cause for Qrow's swearing. No, it was the sight in front of him that caused him to curse.

In front of Qrow, through a view screen, were pods. _Millions of them._ And they were filled with blobs, and when he had looked closer, he had noticed that the blobs were kids.

"Something wrong Qrow?"

Qrow turned to see the face of a man he despised.

"James." He spat, turning away and looking back at the pods in front of him. _What the fuck have you done Qrow?_

"Now now, no need for hostilities. Especially if we're supposed to live here for the foreseeable future." James Ironwood said, standing next to Qrow.

"You know anything about this? About these, _kids?_ " Qrow struggled to finish his sentence, unable to keep up with all that was happening.

"What do you want to know?"

"We were brought here to raise an army. Jango asked us to come here, and train an army. So what the fuck is going on in front of me?"

"We are going to raise an army. They just have to make them first."

"Make them?"

"These are clones, Qrow. Accelerated aging. They'll be ready soon enough."

"Who are they clones of?"

"The normal troopers are clones of Jango, but the special ops soldiers, the one we're here to train, well that's a bit more complicated."

Qrow looked at him, curiosity evident in his expression. "What do you mean, more complicated?"

"Remember how Jango asked you for some DNA a while back?"

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

"Don't worry, there's not going to be a thousand Qrows running around. It's a melting pot. Little bit of Qrow, little bit of someone else. 100% soldier."

"This is _fucked_ James."

Ironwood laughed at that, slapping Qrow on the shoulder before striding off.

"Nothing's ever easy, is it?"

* * *

 **RAS** _ **Beacon.**_ **14 days ABG**

Ruby let out a sigh of relief as she felt Redwing dock the dropship in the hangar bay of the _Beacon._ RWBY had made it off of Fest, and Ruby was looking forward to some sleep before her team got shipped off to some other planet no one had ever heard of.

Yang was the first one out the door, and the team quickly followed her, eager for food and sleep.

"Look, it's the rainbow brigade."

Ruby turned to see four commandos in stark white combat armor staring at her and her team, helmets off, a smirk on the face of the one she presumed had just called her team out.

"Problem?" She said, as her team stood behind her.

"Nah, just making an observation to my friends here about the _individualism_ you Vale soldiers show. A little obnoxious, don't you think?"

"You Atlesian brats are all the same. You have about as much individualism as the droids, you know that?" Yang stepped in pointing a finger at the smug clone talking to her.

"Yeah, well maybe if you sods had spent more time training and less time painting, more of you would have made it off Geono-."

He was interrupted by Yang taking two steps forward, grabbing his collar, rearing her head back, and slamming it down on his.

A loud crack split the air as he fell to the floor, blood streaming from his nose, some of it on Yang's helmet.

Ruby was shocked when Weiss stepped forward, and instead of restraining Yang like Ruby expected her to, delivered a vicious forearm to one of the other commandos, and he stumbled back, blood pouring from his lip.

Blake had stepped forward, fists raised, ready to brawl, and Ruby found herself readying a fighting stance, when a loud voice halted the commandos where they stood.

"ENOUGH!"

Yang and Weiss immediately stood down, standing alongside Ruby and Blake, as a familiar figure entered the room.

Qrow Branwen strode in front of the team, looking down at the commando who Yang had head-butt.

"If there's one thing I had more than disrespecting the dead, it's infighting." He said, and to his credit, the soldier on the ground stared right back at Qrow, seemingly unafraid.

Qrow turned and faced Ruby, giving her a disapproving look.

"Sergeant, take your team and follow me. You lot scram before I come back here." He said, pointing at the Atlas commandos.

Qrow walked out of the room, RWBY in tow.

"Sarge, I didn't know you were onboard the _Beacon._ " Weiss said, as Qrow looked at Yang and gave her a withering glare.

"The hell was that about Yang? You lose your damn mind?" They were stopped now, as Qrow yelled at his former trainee.

"They started it Sarge. Disrespecting CRDL and everyone else we lost out there."

"That does not justify violent retaliation! And you!" He turned to face Weiss, who shrunk back a little, unused to this behavior.

"You get a hot head too Four? I thought you were the collected one of the group, but I guess I was wrong."

He turned back around, storming towards a room. Weiss looked at Yang, a bewildered look on her face, as Ruby followed Qrow, her team behind her.

They entered the room to see Qrow leaning against a table, ten chairs set in a semi-circle in front of the table.

"Sit." He said, gesturing towards the chairs.

The team sat down, and Ruby raised her hand.

Qrow rolled his eyes, nodding at her. "Yeah?"

"Are we expecting company Sarge?"

"Yeah, JNPR should be joining us soon."

Ruby took a moment, before raising her hand again.

"Fucks sake Ruby, you don't have to raise your hand."

"If we're just expecting JNPR, how come there's ten chairs? We should only need eight."

Qrow sighed, putting his head in his hands.

"Just, don't worry about it Ruby. Okay?"

Ruby just nodded, as the room fell into silence.

A few minutes later, Jaune walked into the room, his team trailing behind him.

"Take a seat." Qrow said, as JNPR filed in, Jaune nodding towards RWBY.

"Alright guys, here's the deal. I'm running an anti-terror op, and I need your help."

The commandos sat in silence, before Jaune tentatively raised his hand, causing the members of RWBY to snicker.

"Yes, Jaune."

"What exactly do you mean?"

"Ever been to Coruscant?"

The commandos just shook their heads.

"Basically, there's a terror cell in Coruscant that needs putting down. I can't do it alone. So you eight, Sun, Neptune, and Tai are gonna help me take it out."

"Sergeant Xiao Long is a part of this?" Yang asked, excited to see her favorite training Sergeant again.

"Tai and the two ARC's are already on Coruscant setting up our base of operations."

"What are we going to do?" Pyrrha asked hesitantly, not sure of the situation.

"You'll help with recon, figure out where the cell is, and take them out."

The room fell back into silence, as the squads pondered their new assignment.

"It'll be hard work, but I know you can do it." Qrow said, walking towards the door, before stopping and pointing at Yang.

"Clean that blood off your helmet Yang."

"Jaune has blood on his armor!" Yang said indignantly.

Jaune looked down at his armor, more specifically, the blood stains on his chest piece, and then raising his left arm in front of his face to look at the dried blood running down his gauntlets.

"Despite the disturbing fact that Jaune does have blood on his armor, the blood on his armor isn't from fellow clones."

Yang threw her arms up in exasperation, as Qrow walked out of the room.

"Your dropship leaves in thirty minutes. Dismissed."

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys, Heil96 back again! Ozpin as a Jedi Master was an incredibly easy decision to make, and sorry Breads, but you called it wrong. Ozpin will not be having a major role in this fic, just showing up every now and then. Yang and Weiss are stepping it up with the mental instability game, bringing the pain for those poor Atlas saps. I have big plans for the terror arc, should be fun! We'll see some more familiar faces, and some of Qrow back on Kamino raising the commandos/ SSSN. Really looking forward to what's coming up, and I had a great time writing this chapter! Hope you guys enjoyed, and leave a review if you have feedback! Shout out to all the beautiful people who have faved/ followed this story! Love you all! That's all I have this week, see you lovely folk on Monday, around noon CST!**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1104 Weiss, Private**

 **RC-1170 Blake, Private**

 **RC-1126 Yang, Private**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1163 Nora, Private**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha, Private**

 **RC-2223 Ren, Private**

 **Team SSSN**

 **ARC S-11 Sun, Captain Rank**

 **ARC S-07 Scarlet, Lieutenant Rank**

 **ARC S-12 Sage, Sergeant Rank**

 **ARC S-10 Neptune, Lieutenant Rank**

 **Other**

 **Qrow Branwen, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant in the GAR**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	12. Chapter 12- Emergency Dentistry

**A/N: Warning, this chapter contains graphic violence in the form of a torture scene. If you would like to avoid said scene, there will be a warning before the scene. Enjoy the chapter!**

" _RC-1170 continues to excel in sniping and ambush tactics. However, due to emotional trauma sustained due to the Kaminoans tampering with her DNA, Seventy has issues communicating with her team. However, with Two-Six on her team, hopefully that will be a nonexistent problem in the future. In a move that shocked no one, Blake was assigned to be the squad sharpshooter. Hopefully she'll move on past the issues due to her being a faunus, but only time will tell. Sergeant Branwen, out."- Qrow Branwen, 5 Years BBG._

 **Kamino, 10 Years BBG.**

Qrow Branwen was still in a bad mood. It hadn't stopped raining since he had gotten here, he was put on a team with his annoying sister, and to make matters worse, the Kaminoans prohibited drinking! He had already started to make arrangements to have some smuggled in, because there was no way in hell he was going to be on this planet for years and not have alcohol.

Right now he was in a lounge, sitting in a chair silently while other people chatted around him. James Ironwood was there, widely renowned as the best Atlesian mercenary there was. Taiyang was talking to Raven, Qrow's sister, about something stupid. It didn't matter, they were killing time until they had some troops to train.

Qrow noticed something peculiar in the hallway outside the room. A Kaminoan was leading a group of four little boys down the hall. _Clones?_

Qrow stood up, and walked towards the Kaminoan.

"Excuse me. Who are they?" He said, as the Kaminoan bowed gracefully.

"Hello Master Branwen. These four are our first attempt at ARC troopers."

Something about the Kaminoan's tone of voice was concerning, and Qrow felt the need to press on.

"First attempts? Is something wrong?"

"While these units perform up to par in our combat testing, they seem to be lacking mentally."

 _Combat testing?_ Qrow didn't know what type of combat testing the Kaminoans had done to these kids, and he didn't want to. The kids looked like they were only three years old, maybe, and he hated the thought of putting little kids through any form of combat exercise.

"What do you mean mentally? Are they stupid or something?" He pushed on, aware that the conversation in the room behind him had died down, and some of the people in the room were standing up, making their way over to him.

"On the contrary, these units are smart enough that they surpassed the scale on which we measure them. Unfortunately, they seem to have loyalty issues. Some form of chemical imbalance, it would seem."

"Where are you taking them?"

"I am taking them to be reconditioned."

"What does that mean?"

"In their case, termination."

Something snapped inside of Qrow at that final word, and he felt his fists ball up. He didn't care how disloyal the boys were, they didn't deserve to be put down like animals.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Tai standing behind him.

"Easy Qrow." He murmured, and Qrow knew he was right. Violence wouldn't solve this problem. _But I can't just let these kids die._

"I'll take 'em." Qrow said, as the Kaminoan cocked her head in confusion.

"I'm sorry?"

"I'll train them. They can be loyal, I'll prove it."

"This is highly irregular, Master Branwen."

"I'll vouch for Qrow." Ironwood said, to Qrow's surprise. Qrow nodded at Ironwood, appreciative of the support.

"Couldn't hurt to have a few wild cards in the deck." Tai added, and the Kaminoan sighed in exasperation.

"Very well. You will still be expected to train your assigned commando units."

Qrow simply nodded, as he looked at the four kids in front of him. They were all the same height, but with mix of hair colors, from blonde, to red, to green, and one of them even had blue hair. They slowly walked towards him, as if hesitant that this was all a trap.

Qrow got down on one knee, and looked the blonde one in the eye. He seemed to be the leader of the group, as he had approached Qrow first.

"It's okay son, I'll take care of you." Qrow said, as the child in front of him began to smile.

* * *

 **Galactic City, Coruscant. 29 days ABG.**

"I'm so fucking bored."

Blake sighed, as Yang continued to complain, the same way she had been complaining for the last two weeks.

"We knew this would be a long op when Qrow told us about the terror cell Yang." Ruby reminded her, as the members of Team RWBY sat around a table, idly passing the time.

Yang just sighed, her feet propped up on the table. Her hair was growing at a remarkably fast rate, which Qrow theorized was due to the accelerated aging.

JNPR was in another room sleeping, resting up after they spent all last night on recon. They had been checking out a potential location for the terror cell's base of operations. But like the last two weeks, it had turned up nothing.

Qrow had rented out a large apartment, and the two commando teams had been staying there, along with Sun, Neptune, Qrow, and Taiyang. Whenever they had moved in, Blake had remarked on how much the apartment must have cost, and Qrow dismissed it with a wave of his hand, saying that the Republic was paying the bill.

Blake heard the door open, and instinctively turned around to see who had entered the room. Qrow walked in, followed by Neptune, who was dressed in his blue ARC armor.

"Blake, Yang, suit up." Qrow said, pointing at the two commandos

"What's going on?" Yang said as she stood up, anxious for something to do.

"We finally cracked the data JNPR pulled off that ship, and we got a name of a higher up in the cell. We need you to grab him."

* * *

 **Galactic City, Coruscant. 30 days ABG**

Night had fallen, and Yang couldn't have been happier. She was finally out of that apartment, finally doing something worthwhile. It felt good to have an objective.

Right now she was sitting outside a nightclub, waiting for her mark to exit the building. Blake was on a rooftop with a sniper rifle, watching Yang's back in case something went wrong.

Yang looked down at what she was dressed in, and couldn't help but feel distaste. _Fucking civilian clothes._ She was wearing a tan shirt and a black jacket, long black stockings running up her legs. Her hair was just past her shoulders, and she had to admit that she liked the feeling of having long hair. Of course, as soon as they went back to normal operations, she would have to cut her hair again.

"There he is Yang." Blake voice came through the earpiece Yang was wearing, and Yang simply nodded, beginning to walk towards the door of the club. A larger man was walking out, waving to his friends before walking off alone, coming straight to Yang.

Yang walked right up to him, and pretending to be unaware of her surroundings, bumped into him.

"Oh excuse me!" She said innocently, as he made eye contact with her.

"Careful there. Wouldn't want you getting hurt." He said, a strange look in his eyes.

"Clear." Blake whispered, and Yang's smile grew larger.

"No, we wouldn't want that at all." She said, as she jammed a stun gun into his ribs and activated it.

* * *

 **Undisclosed Location. 30 days ABG.**

 **A/N: Torture scene starts here. Proceed with caution.**

Taiyang Xiao Long considered himself to be a professional. Sure, he used to be a mercenary, but that was just what you did when you needed money and had no issues getting it on Mandalore. Of course, that attitude is exactly what got him stuck on a planet with endless rain ten years ago. Taiyang definitely saw himself as a professional, but he had to admit, he was going to enjoy this more than he probably should.

Taiyang was standing in a room, dressed in only a white tank top, and black athletic shorts. He was going to be working up a sweat, so he might as well be comfortable. His short, messy blonde hair was unruly as always, hints of stubble on his face.

Sitting before him was an unconscious man, strapped to a chair. His hands were chained to the table, palms flat down. He had a name, but Tai was pretty sure it was a fake one. Didn't matter anyway, Tai wasn't here to make friends.

The man began to wake up, head slowly rising, as he took into account his surroundings.

"Finally awake, huh." Tai said, as he strode towards the man, a knife in his hand.

"Here's the deal. I need information, and I know you have the information. I won't lie to you. You aren't leaving this room alive. But if you tell me what I need to know, I'll make it quick. Someone like you should appreciate that." He continued, now standing beside the man, as he turned to look up at him.

And spit in his face.

Tai wiped it off, before slamming the knife down into the man's hand, pinning it to the table, blood spurting from the wound.

"Figured you would do something like that." Tai said, as the man roared in pain.

Tai walked back over to the other side of the table, taking a look at the instruments that lay in front of him. _These should do the trick_ , he thought as he grabbed another knife, and a pair of pliers.

Walking over to the man, Tai slammed the other knife into the man's other hand, causing him to scream even louder. _Good thing Qrow located a soundproofed room for me to use._

Tai grabbed the man's head, pulling it back, forcing his mouth open with his other hand.

"You particularly attached to any of these?" Tai mused, before quickly grabbing the pliers and forcing them into the man's mouth.

"How about this one?" He said, latching the pliers onto one of the man's molars, and yanking hard.

The tooth popped free, a flow of crimson following its premature exit. The man howled, as Tai punched him in the face.

"Who are you working for?!" Tai yelled, throwing another punch. The man didn't say anything, so Tai set the pliers down, flicking the tooth at the man, before walking back to his tools. This time he simply picked up a scalpel, before slowly walking back towards the man.

The man's face was bloodied, but he still refused to talk. Tai grabbed his face forcefully, examining it.

Suddenly, he held up the scalpel, and began to cut off the man's ear. The man screamed, but that wouldn't stop Tai. He ripped the ear off, as blood poured down the side of the man's face.

"Can't have you bleeding out on me." Tai said, grabbing a white hot iron.

"Here, let me take care of that for you." He said once more, pressing the iron against the bleeding flesh, cauterizing the wound. The man howled, as his flesh was seared.

With that job done, Tai took a step back, admiring his handiwork. The man before him was tough no doubt. Maybe it was time for a different approach.

Tai grabbed a glass of water, put a straw in it, and placed it in front of the man.

"Drink." He commanded, as the man slowly leaned forward, placing the straw in his mouth. He drank the entire glass, hallucinogen and all.

His eye twitched, before he his entire body began to convulse.

"Get them off! Get them off me!" He screamed, trying to shake himself free of the chair. His struggling was causing more and more blood to pour from his hands as the knives kept them pinned in place.

Tai simply leaned against the wall, waiting for the effects of the drug to stop.

Roughly ten minutes later, the man had his head down on the table, his body having stopped trembling. Tai grabbed another knife and walked over to him, thinking of what body part to relieve the man of next.

He grabbed the man's hair, forcing him to look up at Tai, knife in hand.

"Please." The man whispered, and Tai cocked his head, curious.

"Who do you work for?" Tai said, as the man simply nodded.

"Cinder Fall."

 **A/N: Hey guys, Heil96 back with another chapter! Hope you guys enjoyed this one, as it was kind of a new thing for me to write. I hope I didn't fuck up the torture scene, but if I messed up anywhere, feel free to PM me and point it out. Feedback is appreciated! I am ecstatic to announce that we broke 2K views with the last chapter! You guys are fucking amazing! Huge shoutout to everyone who has followed/favorited this story, it really means a lot to me. I'd like to point out that I changed this story from Adventure/Humor to Adventure/Dark. I think the dark theme fits better, and I would hate to bait and switch someone like that. That's all I've got, see you on Friday at noon CST!**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1104 Weiss, Private**

 **RC-1170 Blake, Private**

 **RC-1126 Yang, Private**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1163 Nora, Private**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha, Private**

 **RC-2223 Ren, Private**

 **Team SSSN**

 **ARC S-11 Sun, Captain Rank**

 **ARC S-07 Scarlet, Lieutenant Rank**

 **ARC S-12 Sage, Sergeant Rank**

 **ARC S-10 Neptune, Lieutenant Rank**

 **Other**

 **Qrow Branwen, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant in the GAR**

 **Taiyang Xiao Long, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 **James Ironwood. Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	13. Chapter 13- Lucky Number

" _After the incident last week in training, RC-1126 is a clear choice for demolitions operative for her squad. Her personality could help 1170 out of her shell, which would help squad chemistry phenomenally. However, unless Yang can pull back on her nature, which encourages her to rush into situations, she may cause more problems for her team. Team RWBY has been fully assembled, and has been assigned hyper-lethal combat effectiveness rating. Be advised, if their personalities clash and cause detriment to the team's make-up, this rating will fall. Rose, out."- Sergeant Summer Rose, 5 years BBG._

 **Kamino. 9 years BBG**

"So, this is our group huh."

Qrow was standing still, observing the children sleeping in the room in front of him.

"Yeah, roughly a hundred of them, plus the boys you picked up. And we're supposed to make them killers."

Summer was standing next to him, hands behind her back.

"This was the deal we signed up for Summer." He reminded her, turning away from the darkened room.

"I signed up to train soldiers. I expected adults. But this," she gestured behind her at the children "we're going to be raising these kids to go off and die for someone else's war."

"Funny to hear a complaint about fighting someone else's war from a mercenary." Qrow chuckled at the irony of the situation.

'That's not the same. You, me, Tai, we all had a choice. We made that choice. These kids, they'll never have a choice."

"If you could, would you give them a choice?" Qrow asked, stopping to look at her.

"Yes. They deserve that much." She replied, walking into the lounge set up for the training staff.

"What are you two doing up this late?" Ironwood said, sitting alone at a table, clad in his grey and white Mandalorian armor.

"Same as you, I guess." Summer said, sitting across from them. Qrow sat between them, noticing the drink in Ironwood's hand.

"Aye. We have quite the situation in front of us, don't we?" Ironwood said, gesturing towards the children.

"How do you feel about all this?" Qrow asked him, fingers drumming on the table.

"They paid me to train soldiers, so I'll train soldiers."

"Not going to be easy though."

"Nothing worth doing will be easy Qrow."

"And why is this worth doing, James?" Summer said, leaning forward.

"Because we have a very unique opportunity in front of us." He replied, taking a sip from his glass.

"And what opportunity is that?" Qrow asked, aware of a sudden thirst taking hold in his throat.

"These Kaminoans want us to make the perfect soldier. These kids, they've been genetically modified to be smarter, faster, better than us regular folk. But they won't be people. If these Kaminoans have their way, we might as well be training droids. But we can make them human. We can give them a soul, a purpose."

"How are you going to do that?" Summer said, clearly interested in what Ironwood was saying.

"No idea." He admitted, finishing his drink before setting it down.

He walked away, going to his quarters.

"Figure I'll make them Mando. Seems like a good place to start." He added over his shoulder, an idea forming in Qrow's brain.

* * *

 **Galactic City, Coruscant. Arca Company Barracks. 30 days ABG**

"How goes the hunt, Qrow?"

Ozpin was seated behind his desk, sipping at his ever-present coffee while he stared at the man seated before him.

"We're making progress." Qrow replied, leaning back nonchalantly in his chair, as if he didn't have a care in the world. The Jedi knew better though. Whenever he would reach out in the force, to feel Qrow's essence, he was almost shocked. This man was a whirling typhoon of fear, sadness, and anger. The sheer amount of anger present in this man genuinely scared Ozpin. If he didn't know any better, he would assume Qrow was a Sith. Thankfully for the Jedi, he knew of no such thing as a Sith Mandalorian. The thought alone made him shudder.

"Define progress for me, please."

"Well you can't expect us to get this done in a matter of weeks, General. We managed to pick up a member of the cell, and extracted a name from him. The name Cinder Fall mean anything to you?"

"I can't say it does, unfortunately. I don't suppose I want to know how you got this information, do I."

Qrow shook his head, not wanting to talk the details. Tai was a talented man, and a professional, but his methods would surely make Ozpin squirm. As much as Qrow disliked Jedi on principle, he felt no need to antagonize Ozpin.

"Negative, sir. You're better off not knowing that."

"You know, in a way, that's almost worse."

Qrow again shook his head. "Trust me sir, it's not."

Ozpin just sighed, taking a sip of coffee. "So what do you plan on doing with this information Sergeant?"

"I've got a contact in the shadier parts of town I can talk to, see what he knows."

"Well then you better get to it, I think."

Qrow nodded, stood up, and walked out the door. The door slid shut behind him, and Ozpin let out a bemused sigh. Qrow Branwen was indeed an interesting man, and a powerful ally. Ozpin just didn't know how long Qrow would be an ally, and that thought truly scared him.

* * *

 **Galactic City, Coruscant. 30 days ABG**

"Alright Yang, tell me what's on your mind."

Pyrrha and Yang were sitting outdoors at a café, both of them dressed in casual clothes, their hair growing longer every day, enjoying the time off. Well, supposedly enjoying it. The commandos were growing restless, but Yang was the worst of the bunch. Pyrrha had a sneaking suspicion that Yang's unease was caused by much more than boredom.

Yang just sighed, setting down her fork.

"What do you mean?"

It was Pyrrha's turn to sigh, not wanting to jump through hoops to figure out what the problem was.

"You know what I mean Yang. You'll feel better if we talk about it."

Yang just sat in silence, staring off into the distance.

"Yang? Is this about the family?"

Yang winced at that, clearly not trying to think about the family on Qiilura.

"No, it's not that. Well I mean that's still a problem, I can't fucking sleep without seeing them. But it's not the real problem."

"That sounds like a real problem to me Yang. Have you talked to Qrow about it?"

Yang just shook her head dejectedly. "I don't want to burden him with my problems. He has enough to worry about, coordinating this op."

"That's bullshit and you know it. Qrow would be very upset if he knew you were trying to face this problem without talking to him about it."

Yang sat forward, her head in her hands.

"I know, I know. I'll talk to him about it later, promise."

Pyrrha still wasn't satisfied, and she wouldn't be as long as she knew something was bothering Yang. Well, something besides the nightmares. Pyrrha wasn't sure how much help she could be with that particular problem.

"What's this other problem you're having?"

Yang lifted her head from her hands, and fixed Pyrrha with the most serious glare she had ever seen the blonde soldier use.

"What I say, no one else hears about. Okay?"

"Of course Yang, I would never tell someone else about the problems you're having."

Yang just sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Pyrrha, I think I have feelings for someone. One of us."

"Well I think that's perfectly fine, Yang."

Yang seemed shocked, giving Pyrrha a cautious look.

"What do you mean?"

Pyrrha sighed, leaning forward.

"Yang, we are literally fighting to the death alongside our squad. I'd think something would be wrong if we didn't develop feelings for each other. If you don't mind me asking, who is it?"

Yang groaned, burying her head in her hands once more. She mumbled her answer, and Pyrrha had to lean in to hear her.

"Yang, I couldn't hear you."

"Weiss."

Now that shocked Pyrrha, as she had never thought the two would get along as friends, let alone romantically. Truth be told, she wasn't sure what she had expected Yang's answer to be. _I guess opposites do attract._

"Why are you acting like this is such a bad thing?" Pyrrha asked, hesitant to pry, but knowing that she needed more information.

"Because all we do is argue! If I told her how I felt she would probably tell me to fuck off and never talk to me again."

"That seems like an overreaction to me."

"Pyr, her nickname was actually Ice Queen in training."

"That's because of the freezer incident and you know it."

Yang just groaned, letting her forehead hit the table.

Pyrrha decided to press just a bit further, hoping to ease her friend's mind.

"When did you develop these feelings for her?"

"I dunno, might have been on Geonosis. But all I know is when she got shot on Qiilura, my heart stopped. It was like I couldn't even entertain the thought of her dying. Something similar happened on Fest."

"Yang you should really talk to her. Not right now." Pyrrha said, as Yang began to panic. "Later though, maybe when all this is over."

"No, you know what? I'll do it tonight. I'd like to go into the raid, whenever we raid the cell, without anything else on my mind."

Yang stood up abruptly, checking her chronometer. "We should get going Pyr."

Pyrrha stood up, happy that she had been able to help her friend.

"And Pyrrha? Thanks for the talk." Yang said, a smile creeping onto her face.

* * *

 **Qrow's Apartment, 30 days ABG.**

"You sure this intel is good Tai? I'd hate to start asking around about the wrong person."

Taiyang just chuckled, amused that Qrow would doubt him.

"Trust me Qrow, the _chakkar_ wasn't lying."

Tai had been speaking in _Mando'a_ quite a bit recently, as opposed to back on Kamino, where he rarely spoke the language.

"Did you waste him already?"

"Yeah, he was gonna bleed out anyway. Funny thing, humans don't bounce when dropped from a tall building."

Qrow just snorted in amusement at his friend's nonchalance. "Glad you decided to test that hypothesis for us Tai. The scientific community thanks you for your contribution."

Tai just laughed, as Qrow walked into a different room, where most of the clones were lounging.

"Which of you lazy _shabs_ wants to accompany me on an intel run?" He shouted into the room, and immediately, all the clones raised their hands.

"Okay, I'll take Jaune, Sun, and Neptune. The rest of you get ready for radio traffic monitoring, Tai should be setting up the feed soon.

The three male soldiers walked up to Qrow, clearly happy for the opportunity to have a _run ashore_ , as Neptune called it. Qrow wasn't sure where he had picked up the phrase, and if he knew Neptune, he didn't want to know.

"We going in civvies, sarge?" Jaune asked, scratching the back of his neck.

"Yeah, real casual. Don't need you lads walking around Galactic City in full kit, that's bound to spook the normies."

"I feel naked without my armor." Sun whined, and Neptune just punched him on the shoulder.

"Suck it up boys, you'll be back in gear soon enough."

* * *

 **Galactic City**

"Sarge, what are we doing here?"

The four were standing in front of what looked like a sleazy diner, if the bright neon sign hanging above the door was any indication.

"We're here to talk to an old, _friend_ of mine. He owes me no small sum of money, and I'm here to cash in."

Qrow walked into the establishment first, noting the sound of a chime going off as he opened the door.

"How may I hel- oh. Hello Qrow." A tall man dressed sharply in white with orange hair walked out through a door in the back, a small girl following behind him.

"Hello Roman."

"I don't suppose you're just here to catch up, are you?" Roman said nervously, his hands behind his back as he stood in front of Qrow.

"I think we both know why I'm here, Roman."

"Yes, well I'm afraid I don't have that much money on me at this time."

"Then let me propose an alternative to the conventional method of clearing a debt."

Roman gestured towards the counter, as Qrow and him sat down, the three clones and the girl still standing.

"You know, I have to ask. Who are the men?" Roman asked, pointing at Jaune and the others.

"They're my sons." Qrow replied, causing Roman to chuckle.

"Quite the assortment of kids you have there Qrow."

"What can I say? I have a weakness for miniskirts. Who's the girl?"

Roman sobered up at that question, looking back at Qrow. "Daughter."

Qrow simply nodded, before redirecting the conversation. "So, about your debt."

"Yes, what is this alternative you spoke of?"

"I want to trade information for the debt. You tell me what I want, and I forget you ever owed me a thing."

"If I recall correctly, I owe you quite a bit of money."

"Well I need a lot of information. Well, maybe not a lot of information, just good information."

Roman nodded, holding his hand out. Qrow shook out, a smile spreading across the face of the orange-haired man.

"So, what do you need to know?"

"Know anything about a man named Cinder Fall?"

The smile dropped off of Roman's face immediately, and he looked over his shoulder at the girl.

"Neo, bring us something to drink. The good stuff, please."

He turned back towards Qrow, a serious expression on his face.

"Qrow… what are you involved with?"

Qrow had a blank expression on his face, not betraying any emotion he was feeling.

"Does it matter? Just tell me what you know."

Roman just sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"First, Cinder is a woman, not a man. Second, she'd the head of an anti-Republic terrorist known as the Grimm."

Neo walked up and set drinks down before them, Qrow giving her a nod before turning his head back towards Roman.

"So these Grimm. You know anything about their operations? A base maybe?"

"No, nothing like that. They've been very quiet recently. Word is that one of their operatives was found dead in her apartment, and another's missing." Roman's eyes widened, and he leaned forward.

"Shit, was that you? Did you take them out?"

"Sorry Roman, but I can't tell you that. You got anything else for me?"

"Just one thing. Word is the Grimm are stepping up the scale of their operations. Something called Phase Two. They're in the market for explosives. I'm talking high-yield, top-grade explosives." Roman leaned in closer. "And they're asking for a lot."

Qrow just sighed, finishing his drink before setting it down.

"Thanks Roman. We'll be headed out now."

"We're good then? My debt's clear, right?"

"Yeah, you're fine."

The clones followed Qrow out the door, Jaune right behind him.

"Sarge? What's our plan?" He asked, as Sun and Neptune walked behind him.

"I know how we're going to find the cell. But first, I have to make a call to Ozpin that he's not going to enjoy."

* * *

 **Qrow's Apartment.**

Weiss was sitting in the living room, cleaning her Deece, just as she had been for the past two weeks. Really, she didn't mind the downtime, it just got a little boring, is all. But it was better than being shot and kept in a tank.

Blake was sitting across from her, browsing the HoloNet on a datapad. Ever since they arrived in the apartment and Blake had discovered the HoloNet, she had been browsing it constantly. The other commandos were scattered throughout the apartment, milling around, waiting for Qrow and the others to get back. Tai had gone for a "supply run," and with that man that could mean anything from picking up groceries to disposing of bodies.

"Hey Weiss? You got a minute?"

She looked up to see Yang standing in the doorway of the room, gesturing over her shoulder.

"Yeah, sure. What's up?"

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys, Heil96 back with another chapter! Another member of STRQ is revealed in the form of the lovely Summer Rose, and we get some more insight on Kamino. This is a heavy build-up chapter, but don't worry, next chapter will have lots of action! Despite the slow nature of this chapter, I hope I wrote it well. Roman and Neo show up here, and I like the idea of them being criminal, but not being associated with Cinder. And no, the woman Sun killed and the man Tai tortured are not Em and Merc, just in case anyone was confused about that. The older members of the cast are starting to speak some** **and I'll be gradually incorporating that more and more into the 's about all I have, thanks to everyone who's read this story so far, I've had a great time putting this out! Special thanks to everyone who has favorited/followed the story, and to everyone else leaving reviews. Next chapter will be out Monday around noon CST!  
**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1104 Weiss, Private**

 **RC-1170 Blake, Private**

 **RC-1126 Yang, Private**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1163 Nora, Private**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha, Private**

 **RC-2223 Ren, Private**

 **Team SSSN**

 **ARC S-11 Sun, Captain Rank**

 **ARC S-07 Scarlet, Lieutenant Rank**

 **ARC S-12 Sage, Sergeant Rank**

 **ARC S-10 Neptune, Lieutenant Rank**

 **Other**

 **Qrow Branwen, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant in the GAR**

 **Taiyang Xiao Long, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 **Summer Rose. Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 **James Ironwood. Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	14. Chapter 14- Checklist

**A/N: Alright, first things first. I'm really really really really really sorry. Finals happened, and I got swamped with schoolwork, and then I had my head up my own ass for an extended amount of time.. That being said, we're finally back on track for the story. I'll have more to say after the chapter, I just wanted to get this done.**

* * *

" _1390 has been assigned leader status after his recent success in leadership scenarios and exercises. I don't think he was expecting that, and he immediately tried to tell us that he didn't deserve the role. However, we see his potential, and it's clear his peers do as well, and with any luck this will bolster his confidence. Time will tell if Jaune will be the leader his team needs. Branwen, out."- Sergeant Qrow Branwen, 5 years BBG._

 **Kamino 7 years BBG**

"Run you maggot!"

Qrow winced at the harsh tone of his sister, but he knew she didn't really mean it. She was yelling at one of the trainees, a little blonde girl who had fallen face first into the mud.

"Two-Six do you want to fail? Do you want to let your fellow trainees down?"

The little girl stood back up on shaky legs, beginning to run again, trying to catch up to the other children.

"No ma'am!" The girl, designated as 26, said weakly, desperately trying to gain lost ground.

Qrow just sighed, firing his rifle into the air. Live rounds, but he wasn't trying to hit them. Just scare them.

He hated this, but he knew it had to be done. The children were technically six years old, but at the same time, they were around three years old. Kaminoan rapid aging tech made it hard to keep track of how old everyone was.

"Run, dammit! If you don't make it in time, you'll run it again!" Qrow joined in, yelling at the children, firing his rifle repeatedly.

 _I know it hurts, but please just don't stay down._ If they stayed down, they would have to be submitted for _termination_. The first time Qrow heard a Kaminoan say that word referring to the clones, he almost throttled her on the spot.

The girl fell again, and Qrow began to walk over, ready to take her away, when, to his surprise, she got back up and began to run.

"That's it Six! Run like you have a purpose!" He yelled out, almost filled with happiness as she ran to her group, meeting Tai and Summer at the finish.

He would have to keep an eye on Two-Six. She had something special within her.

He could feel it.

 _Okay, here's how it goes. Same dream, every night. It always starts with Summer, just seeing her on the ground, and her blood all over us. All over me. That used to be all it was, but now it keeps going, and I see the family, begging for their lives. It happens in slow motion, from the pull of the trigger to their bodies hitting the grass. But it doesn't stop there. I see CRDL, and then I see us. I see Pyrrha taking a sniper round through the heart, Nora being taken out by a mortar round, Ren bleeding out on the ground, until it's just Jaune. Then it's Jaune in his room, a blaster hole in the roof of his mouth. One by one we fall, until I'm the only one left. And then, I'm gone too. -_ Private journal of RC-1126

 **Coruscant, 30 Days ABG**

"Hey Sarge, I have a question."

Qrow turned around to see Jaune with a troubled expression on his face, scratching his neck awkwardly.

"What is it Jaune?"

"Back there, when you told Roman we were your sons, did you mean it?"

"Course I did Jaune. You're like my children, all of you." Qrow said, rustling Jaune's blonde hair.

Jaune smiled at him, seemingly reassured as Qrow pulled out his comlink and quickly tapped in a code.

"Hello?"

"Oz, it's Qrow. I've got a request to make, but you're not gonna like it."

"You're already doing a good job selling it."

Qrow hesitated a second, before continuing with his train of thought.

"I need a sizable amount of explosives from the GAR armory."

"I assume you have a reason?"

"We're going to use it as bait to take the terror cell down."

"I want you to walk me through this plan Sergeant." Ozpin said coolly, and Qrow began to worry that this wouldn't work. _If he shuts this down we're screwed, I don't have any other plans._

"We'll put word out that we're selling a very large amount of high-grade explosives. This is the kind of bait only a big fish has the teeth to take, so I'm not worried about some punk street gang trying to get their hands on something so they can make their rival's eyes water."

"And if they take this bait?"

"Then we get as many of them into one spot as we can, try and get all their leaders there, and clean house."

"I will be needing the explosives back, Qrow."

"Don't worry, you won't even notice they're missing."

 **The Apartment**

"It's good you're here Yang, you're just the person I was looking for." Weiss said, setting her Deece down.

"I am?" Yang said, sitting down on the couch across from Weiss.

"Yeah, I was wondering if you were still having those nightmares?"

Yang paused for a second, as if she wasn't expecting this line of questioning.

"Yeah, I'm still having them. Why?"

"Is it so wrong for me to care about you Yang? We are a team after all." Weiss said matter-of-factly, as if disappointed Yang even had to ask.

"It's not that it's just, I guess I wasn't expecting you to ask."

"Have you talked to Qrow about them yet?"

"Haven't gotten the time yet."

"Yang, we've been doing nothing but recon assignments for the last month. Do you honestly expect me to believe you haven't had the time?" Weiss said, staring Yang down.

"I'm just kind of afraid of what he'll say." Yang said, looking down at the ground. She looked up when she felt a touch on her shoulder, Weiss standing there, hand on Yang comfortingly.

"Yang, you know that he'll only want to help you."

Yang had to take a second to think, knowing that unfortunately Weiss was right. Qrow would just want to help her. Deep down, she knew she hadn't come to Qrow yet because she was afraid to admit that she had failed. She had failed when they had to cut down the family, and she had been trained not to fail. In training, failure wasn't acceptable. Failure came with death, something the squad had learned the hard way when Summer died in front of them. Squads that failed were taken to reconditioning, and never seen again. People spoke of what happened to them in hushed whispers at night, but no one truly knew what had become of the teams deemed bad enough to be sent to reconditioning. All they knew was they never, ever, came back.

"Yang." She looked up to see piercing blue eyes staring at her, accented by a scar over her left eye, a reminder to take live fire exercises seriously.

"You should go talk to him." Weiss said, her voice softer then Yang had ever heard before. In that moment, she knew what had to be done.

"You know what? You're right Weiss." Yang said, standing up, making to leave the room.

"Thanks Weiss. You're a good friend."

 **Elsewhere in the Apartment**

"Calling again so soon Qrow?" The smug voice said from the comlink, making Qrow grit his teeth. Only one man would have the guts to speak to Qrow in such a manner.

"I need you to do something for me Roman." Qrow said, hoping to cut through the bullshit and get straight to business.

"You never call to say hello, you don't send flowers, it's like you don't care anymore." The smartass said, causing Qrow's left eye to twitch slightly in irritation.

"It's about the Grimm dickwad. Stop messing around."

The line went silent for a second, and Qrow was almost afraid he had gone too hard.

"How can I help you Qrow?" Roman said, all playfulness gone from his voice. Roman knew when to get serious, and it was the only reason Qrow hadn't killed him yet.

"I need to put some materials on the market." Is all Qrow said, keeping it intentionally vague. Roman would know _exactly_ what he was referring to.

"How secure is this line?" Roman said, voice hushed.

"No one's going to hear what we say."

Roman let out a sigh of relief, before proceeding with the conversation.

"What type of materials, Qrow?"

"I have what they're looking for."

"That is… quite a bit of material my friend. How much do you have?"

Qrow smiled, knowing he had Roman hooked now.

"I've got enough for them."

"How much are you asking for?"

"Highest bid ought to do fine."

"I'll want a fee for putting this on the market for you."

Qrow gritted his teeth at that. _Greedy bastard._

"Your fee can be anonymity."

"You're not actually going to give them the materials are you?" Roman asked hesitantly, and Qrow smiled at that. _You've no idea what I'm up to, and you're better off not knowing._

"Can't tell you that."

"These people are professionals Qrow. I'm not sure you want to fuck with them."

"I can handle myself Roman. Put my number out with the material." Qrow said angrily, ending the call. He ran a hand through his hair, eyes closed, wincing at the oncoming headache. It was going to be a long night.

"Hey Qrow, do you have a minute to talk?"

 _I was wondering when this was gonna happen._ Qrow thought, as he gestured to the seat across from him. "What's on your mind firecracker?"

She smiled for a brief second, before it faded from her face as she sat down.

"I messed up Sarge. I messed up real bad." She said, the fingers on her right hand rapidly drumming a nervous beat on her thigh.

"Start from the beginning Yang. Tell me what happened."

Yang took a deep, shaky breath, avoiding Qrow's eyes.

"On Qiilura, we had to cross this field. In the middle was this farmhouse, and we had to go quiet so we didn't disturb the people inside, because we were running covert ops. I fucked up, and the family heard me, and they came out. We… we had to…"

Qrow immediately knew what she was going to say, and he reached over and gently grabbed her hand in his.

"Hey, eyes up soldier." Her lilac eyes met his, tears beginning to pool in hers.

"Mistakes happen. People get hurt. But it's what you take away from this, what you learn, that's important. Understand?"

"I can see them in my dreams Qrow. I can hear them begging for their lives. And then Ruby gives the order, and then it happens."

"Are these anything like the nightmares you used to have? After Summer died?"

She nodded, and Qrow's mind couldn't help but wander to the fateful day Team RWBY witnessed their instructor dying in front of them. He quickly shoved those thoughts away. Now was not the time to reflect on her death.

"Yang, you just need to come to terms with what you've done. Only when you do, will you be able to move past what happened, and continue to help your squad."

She nodded, as he squeezed her hand briefly, before letting go.

"Now come on kid, let's go get you something to eat."

 **Coruscant, 42 Days ABG**

Pyrrha was drenched in sweat, her lungs burning as she ran another lap around the training complex. She'd been exercising like mad since they started the operation, as it was the only way she could stay sane. That, and spending time at the range, keeping her aim sharp. The commandos had all been doing the same, even now Weiss was running too, a few meters behind her. They weren't racing, merely staying conditioned. Pyrrha slowed to a stop, taking a swig from her water bottle as Weiss continued to run.

It had been a very slow, boring twelve days since Qrow had put word out that he was selling high explosives. They were beginning to worry that the terrorists wouldn't take the bait. If that was the case, they'd have to come up with something new, and no one was sure what the plan would be.

"Hey Pyr! Weiss!"

Pyrrha's head turned to face Jaune, who was calling her name.

"What's up Jaune?"

"Qrow made contact with the terrorists. He wants all of us upstairs."

Weiss jogged over to them, out of breath from her run.

"Come on Weiss, Qrow wants us to meet with him."

She nodded, as the trio walked through the door.

A short speeder ride later and they were walking into the apartment, Pyrrha noticing the presence of the other five commandos, plus Sun and Neptune.

Pyrrha and Jaune stood by the door, while Weiss sat down in an empty seat next to Ruby and Nora. Qrow was deep in conversation with Sun and Neptune, but when he noticed that all the commandos were present he merely shook his head at whatever Sun was saying, before walking to the center of the living room.

"Alright kiddos, I've made contact with the Grimm, and I've set up a time and place to meet with them. We'll be discussing cost and delivery, since that's not something anyone wants to talk about over comlink. Much safer to meet in person. Commandos will be overwatch, nonlethal rounds only. We're here to observe, not kill. Besides, they won't be bringing all their top tier members, so killing the ones that show up will just cause the higher-ups to scatter, and we won't find them again. Sun and Nep will be on the ground with me, posing as the hired muscle. I'm not expecting trouble, but we're being cautious anyway. Meet is tomorrow at 1600, in the industrial sector. We're mobilizing at 0800 to get set up. Questions?"

The room had gone silent, all the commandos eager at the thought of finally getting to hunt again.

Qrow smiled, understanding the anticipation the soldiers were feeling.

"Let's end this"

* * *

 **A/N: I'M BACK FROM THE DEAD MOTHERFUCKERS. Sorry, had to get that out of the system. Good news, this fic is officially back in action, and I've got a good feeling about future chapters. Bad news is, there will not be a schedule for release. I'll put them out when I make them, but no worries, it won't be another 5 month gap. This chapter is coming out at exactly 5 months after the last one, which I think is kind of cool. You know, besides the almost half year gap. Couple things I want to address story wise. Well, really, one big thing. Last chapter I decided to add in some romance. That's not happening. At least, not for a very long time. I'm focusing on what I intentionally wanted this fic to be about, which is action and character development inside the squads. Next chapter will be the end of the Coruscant arc, and then we're going to have some pretty action heavy chapters to make up for the lack of action we've been having. Also, I'm publishing these through my new Reddit account, TheNewKraken. It's still me writing these, just changed my Reddit user so people from the /r/RWBY discord could recognize me on the sub, and vice-versa.**

 **Sorry again for the wait, but I promise, this fic has got good things coming. ALSO HOLY SHIT THIS FIC HAS ALMOST 4K VIEWS THANKS SO MUCH TO EVERYONE.**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1104 Weiss, Private**

 **RC-1170 Blake, Private**

 **RC-1126 Yang, Private**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1163 Nora, Private**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha, Private**

 **RC-2223 Ren, Private**

 **Team SSSN**

 **ARC S-11 Sun, Captain Rank**

 **ARC S-07 Scarlet, Lieutenant Rank**

 **ARC S-12 Sage, Sergeant Rank**

 **ARC S-10 Neptune, Lieutenant Rank**

 **Other**

 **Qrow Branwen, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant in the GAR**

 **Taiyang Xiao Long, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 **Summer Rose. Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 **James Ironwood. Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	15. Chapter 15- Only The Dead Will Be Spared

" _After today's training, I've seen fit to make 1163 JNPR's demolition expert. While it was a toss-up between her and 1390, we've decided that Jaune would make a better leader, while Nora fits into the role of ordnance specialist seamlessly. She has developed a fast friendship with 2223, helping bring him out of his shell. Nora's cheerful demeanor is a notable morale boost for her fellow soldiers, and should not be underestimated. She also possesses a serious side, able to switch to a ruthless killer if necessary. She also currently holds the record for most pancakes eaten at once, which will stand for all time, as after the contest, the Kaminoans declared no more pancakes would be made. Apparently they didn't want to have to clean the mess hall again."-_ Qrow Branwen.

 **Coruscant 43 Days ABG**

"Contact. Coming in through the sidewalk."

Ren snapped his scope to the place called out by Ruby. Sure enough, there were four people walking towards Qrow, who was standing out in the courtyard, Sun next to him. On three sides there were buildings, with the members of RWBY and JNPR scattered around them, all with snipers, in case things went south.

Two people stepped to the front, a woman with dark skin and mint green hair, a man with grey hair a few paces behind her. These two carried themselves like they were important, while the other two seemed like common fodder.

"You Traviss?" The woman asked Qrow, who nodded his head.

"Yeah, that's me. You Cinder?"

The lady smiled at that, as if it was some kind of funny joke.

"No, my name is Emerald. I'm sorry, but Ms. Fall is unable to join us as of now. I assure you, she will be present for the actual transfer, if this… partnership… makes it to that phase."

Qrow cocked his head to the side, a frown on his face. "I arranged the meeting with her. If she's not going to take this seriously, I could just leave."

"That won't be necessary. In the spirit of full discretion, Ms. Fall is a bit… nervous."

Qrow laughed, as Sun crossed his arms across his chest. He had died his hair black, and was wearing casual clothes, like Qrow, who was wearing civilian clothes.

"Nervous! About what? Getting pulled over on the way here?"

"We had one of our associates get found dead in her apartment. And an entire ship of people working for us went missing. So you'll understand if she's a bit hesitant to show her face."

Ren saw Sun shift slightly, the whole conversation being relayed by a wire mic underneath Qrow's jacket.

"I suppose that's understandable. But if she's not present for the actual exchange I will not sell to you. I'd like to know that I'm working with the real deal, not a few punks taking someone else's name." The man behind Emerald started forward at that, but Emerald stopped him, muttering something about Mercury.

"I understand. Now, if you don't mind, we'd like to negotiate price." Emerald said properly, but clearly tired of petty sniping.

"6 million for the load." Qrow said without hesitation.

"That is far too much." Emerald said dismissively.

"No, it's not. You're the only one who wants this grade of explosives in this quantity, it wasn't easy to acquire, and I've got a damn good idea as to what you're going to use it for, so consider the extra cost as appeasing my conscience."

"A Mandalorian with a conscience? I never thought I'd see the day." The grey haired man said mockingly, shutting up when Qrow fixed him with a deadly stare.

"4 million is our counter offer." Emerald said, ignoring her associate's antics.

Qrow paused for a second, looking up at the sky, deep in thought.

"4 and a half mil, final offer."

Emerald sighed, before extending her hand, which Qrow shook, a smile on his face.

 **Coruscant, 44 Days ABG**

"Do we have a day for the drop?" Tai asked, his arms crossed over his chest, fingers drumming a beat on his arm.

"No, our lovely _associates_ will be getting back to us for the drop day." Qrow said as he sat down, a glass of clear alcohol already in his hand. It was barely noon.

"We need you in top form for the raid Qrow." Tai said, staring at the glass with obvious disdain.

"I shoot better with a few drinks in me. Helps calm my nerves as well." Qrow took a swig, staring Tai down the entire time.

"Just make sure you're set." Tai called out, leaving the living room of the apartment that the entire strike force, as they jokingly called themselves, was inhabiting. Nerves were rising now that they had struck a bargain with the Grimm. The day of the raid was growing closer, and everyone could taste it in the air. No one was taking any risks on patrol, not doing anything out of the usual routine, for fear of hurting themselves before the strike. Not out of fear for personal safety, but for fear of letting down the team. The armory had already been promised to Qrow by Ozpin himself, and the team had spent some time joking about the weapons they'd bring to the raid. He hoped they were jokes at least, since Sage's obsession with a Merr-Sonn Aim Assisted Anti-Vehicle Rocket Launcher might not leave much of a city behind, especially if explosives were involved.

Qrow's comlink chirped, notifying him of an incoming call.

"Qrow, this is Cinder. There's been a slight hiccup."

 **Coruscant, 44 Days ABG**

Sun was sitting around the dinner table, laughing as Neptune lost yet again in a round of cards. The entire table, consisting of Yang, Pyrrha, Ruby, and Jaune, Scarlet, and Sun himself, began to roar with laughter as Neptune began to yell at Scarlet, believing that his brother was rigging the deck. He was absolutely correct, but he should have known better than to let Scarlet deal out the hands.

All laughter stopped as swearing could be heard from the other room, where Tai had just walked out of. All the clones looked at the doorway as Qrow stormed through, his words a myriad of curses and expletives.

"Alright kiddos, get your shit on, we've got to move now if we want to get set up for the raid."

 **Coruscant Freight Sector, 44 Days ABG**

Sun was afraid. He knew better than to let the fear control him, though. It was one of the first things Qrow had ever taught them, to use the fear as a tool, rather than let it shut him down. The Grimm had added a new problem to the mix, as one of their crew had been picked up by the cops and they were in a rush to move. Bad luck, but they had to adapt. The worse bit of it was that Cinder wasn't going to be there for the delivery of the shipment. That meant the strike team had been divided in half, one half here for the drop, the other half ready to be deployed once they learned where Cinder was. Sun was in charge of Team Alpha, consisting of himself, Scarlet, Ren, Pyrrha, Weiss, and Ruby. Qrow was there for the drop itself, with Sun by his side in Mandalorian armor, acting as a bodyguard, with the rest of the team in sniper positions, ready to kill everyone once given the order.

"Here they come." Scarlet said from a rooftop nearby, as a group of 6 people walked up to them, Emerald at the front.

"Lazy fuckers won't even on time to their own party." Ruby said, from a location Sun wasn't fully sure of.

"Cut the chatter." Sun said, assuming the role of squad leader fully, keeping everything focused. They couldn't afford to get distracted, not right now.

"Where were you?" Qrow said, nodding his head at Emerald.

"We got caught in traffic. You gonna bust my balls about every little thing or are we going to do this?" She said, clearly impatient.

"Explosives are in the truck." Qrow said, nodding towards the speeder truck that Scarlet had 'commandeered' earlier that day. "Has the payment gone through yet?"

"No, we need to inspect the goods." She replied, striding towards the truck, before climbing on board with another of her men. They began to tear open packages, checking that the packages were all legit.

"I'm insulted that you don't trust us." Qrow feigned boredom, but Sun noticed a twitch in Qrow's right arm, towards his blaster.

"Never trust a Mando, don't take it personally." She yelled back.

She jumped down from the truck, followed by her man. The other 4 looked around aimlessly, clearly wanting to be done with it all. Emerald pulled out a datapad, and began to press some keys on the screen.

"Alright Traviss, money's on the way. Pleasure doing business with you."

"Thanks for the business." Qrow said, as 5 rifle shots rang out, each one piercing the skull of Emerald's coworkers.

"What the fu-." She began to exclaim, before Sun tackled her, ripping the blaster from her hand, before slamming his fist into her nose.

"Where is Cinder?" Sun asked, his fist cocked back, ready to strike again.

"Kiss my ass." She replied, as an armored gauntlet struck her in the face, a sharp crack ripping breaking through the air. Sun flipped her over, a knee on her back and his arms wrapped around her neck in a chokehold.

Qrow strode over and picked the datapad up from off the ground, wiping off some dirt that had accumulated on the screen, before swiping through the various screens.

"Oh hey, a message from Cinder. 'Once you have the package, meet us at this address.' Ya know, you really should have memorized the address and deleted this message." Qrow said, turning away from her while keying in the code for Tai.

"Amateurs" Sun muttered, as he twisted his arms and felt Emerald's neck snap.

 **Coruscant, 45 Days ABG**

Yang's fingers drummed on her ACP Array Gun. She was a part of Team Bravo, led by Jaune. Her, Nora, Jaune, and Blake were on room clearing duty, while Neptune, Tai and Sage suppressed anyone on the outside. Their target was a two story building, layout unknown, current inhabitants unknown. All they knew was that Cinder was inside, and that everyone on the premises would not be alive in a few moments. There were sentries on the roof, who Nep, Tai, and Sage would be neutralizing before the assault team moved up to the door at the front of the building.

"Assault team in position." Jaune said in his mic, the team hidden behind a corner, ready to move up.

"Taking the sentries in 3, 2, 1." Neptune said, as rifle shots rung out, toppling the figures on top of the building. Voices began shouting inside the building, before a rocket fired out and hit the front of the building, giving the assault team an entry. A second rocket went screaming into the building, giving the team some room to breathe as they ran towards the building.

"Yang, up front!" Jaune yelled as Yang sprinted into the room, ACP gun at the ready.

The inside was chaos incarnate. Smoke filled the air, voices echoing through the building, some dazed, crawling on the ground. Some were angry, and one in particular was asking to know what happened. _Cinder_.

Yang's ACP gun instinctively snapped to a target, someone stumbling, shell shocked after the rockets. She pulled the trigger, no hesitation or remorse as blood and gore spilled out his back, falling to the floor. She moved on to the right of the building with Blake, Jaune and Nora going left.

Blake executed one of the women crawling on the ground, a single tap to the back of the head with her DC-17. It was a slaughter, whole and pure. One man tried to fight back, but his head disappeared behind the barrel of Yang's ACP, replaced by a spray of pink mist.

"Clear!" Yang yelled as they ran into the last room on their side of the building, Blake shoulder charging a woman into a wall, before sliding her vibroblade into the man's throat as Yang pumped two rounds into someone on the other side of the room, blood spraying all over the wall.

"Right side clear!" Blake called out, as they regrouped in the main room, next to a staircase that went straight up into the second floor.

Jaune sprayed plasma into a room, stopping only as Nora entered, before the room was illuminated with blue from the inside.

"Left side clear! Regroup!" Jaune ordered, meeting Yang and Blake at the stairs, nodding at them. He had more blood on his armor, all over his chest plate.

"They're up these stairs, and they're ready for us. Stick together, move quickly, and leave no one alive." He said, before taking point up the stairs. He paused at the top, priming a flashbang in his right hand.

"Flashing!" He yelled, the three girls charging in as it went off.

Where the downstairs had been a slaughter, the second floor would be a fight. A table was flipped over, presumably with someone taking cover behind it. Several men were standing behind pillars, weapons aimed at the stairs. Thankfully they were blinded by the flashbang, allowing the commandos to also take cover, before firing on the enemies.

Nora let loose a burst of plasma, sinking them into the chest of one of the Grimm, as they fell to the floor. Yang took this opportunity to move up, flanking on the right. Cinder was nowhere in sight, so it seemed safe to assume that she was behind the big table.

As Yang was moving, a man with grey hair stepped out from behind a pillar, hitting her in the chest with a burst from his blaster. She staggered back, her trigger finger reflexively pulling, firing off a round from her gun. Unfortunately she was off balance, and her aim was lower than usual, so the round blew his legs off right at the knee, causing him to howl in pain as he dropped to the floor. Yang took cover behind a pillar, racking more rounds into her ACP, noticing that the rest of the team had moved up as well. Only one person left.

Cinder rose from behind the table, what appeared to be a tube in her hand. Yang was moving before she registered what she was looking at, as one end of the tube began to glow, and a jet of fire went across yang, covering her in a jelly like substance that seemed to be highly flammable.

The thing about burning while being in a flame proof set of armor was that you didn't feel anything. You could see the flames all over you, but you couldn't even feel the heat through the plates. Still, she began to feel fear creeping through her just at the knowledge of being on fire. She suddenly got tackled, as someone rolled her on the ground, desperately trying to put out the flames. She slowly became aware of the comms chatter, having faded out.

"Someone tell me what the fuck is going on!" _Was that Tai?_

"We have a commando down, repeat commando down!" _Who's down? Am I down?_

"Cinder has been neutralized, I repeat, Cinder has been killed"

She heard the wail of that man who had lost his legs, before a burst rang out, silencing him.

"Yang! Yang! You okay?!" She looked up to see Jaune's armor over her. He must have been the one who knocked her down, putting out the fire.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good." She said, starting to get up.

"Good, because we gotta get the fuck out of here before the cops show up!" Jaune helped her up, as they began to leave the burned out, broken building filled with Grimm.

 **Coruscant, 45 Days ABG**

"It would appear that a devastating gang war boiled over last night, as several members of a gang were brutally murdered in two different locations. The police are currently investigating leads as to who did this, but we are unsure just how much evidence they have to go off of."

Lisa Lavender was cut off mid transmission, as Neptune turned her off.

"I was watching that!" Sun said, faking indignation.

"Curious as to who killed some gangsters?" Nep shot back mockingly.

"Yeah, I'd like to buy the courageous men who did this a drink. They sound like handsome, charming young lads."

"I'm sure they are." Neptune laughed, rolling his eyes.

Sun was relishing the time they had to relax. New orders were soon to come in, as two commando squads and an ARC squad would be in high demand for the war effort.

"Come on, we're celebrating in the bar." Neptune said, walking towards the door.

"Yeah, sounds good man." Sun walked towards the door, following his brother.

It wasn't often they would have off time during the war. It would be foolish not to take advantage of it.

 **A/N: CORUSCANT ARC OFFICIALLY FINISHED! I'm super excited to move on to the next arc of our story. But first, I need to address the release schedule. I've been hella depressed recently and so this dropped basically off my priority list. But I'm good now! So hopefully I'll write some of these in preparation, and I'm hoping to get back into it with a monthly release schedule. No promises that I'll stick to it though. I'm sorry for kind of dropping off the face of the earth, but I'm back, and I'm ready to keep this fic going.**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1104 Weiss, Private**

 **RC-1170 Blake, Private**

 **RC-1126 Yang, Private**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1163 Nora, Private**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha, Private**

 **RC-2223 Ren, Private**

 **Team SSSN**

 **ARC S-11 Sun, Captain Rank**

 **ARC S-07 Scarlet, Lieutenant Rank**

 **ARC S-12 Sage, Sergeant Rank**

 **ARC S-10 Neptune, Lieutenant Rank**

 **Other**

 **Qrow Branwen, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant in the GAR**

 **Taiyang Xiao Long, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 **Summer Rose. Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 **James Ironwood. Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


	16. Chapter 16- A Hill To Die On

" _There's something going on here. Something behind the scenes, some big secret. Why commission this large of an army, especially one that takes 10 years to grow to maturity? What if your enemy strikes first? What do you do then? The money's good, and that's the only reason I haven't taken off already. But they're keeping secrets from us, and if I hate anything, it's being kept in the dark." –_ Journal of Raven Branwen, 3 months prior to going AWOL.

 **Kavaar 83 Days ABG**

Waiting was always the worst part. Yang could handle being shot at, wounded, knocked around from blasts, and even some of the worst smells the galaxy had to offer. But waiting? Waiting sucked. Yang was currently sitting atop a hill overlooking a dirt trail this backwater world called a road, using a civilian convoy as bait in the hopes the local insurrection leader would show up. The good people of Kavaar had asked the Republic for help in quelling a Separatist funded insurrection. Kavaar was about as Outer Rim as they come, but as it would turn out, Kavaar has large deposits of minerals and ores that are necessary for building _Venator_ -class starships. The Republic was more than happy to strike up a deal that gave them access to all the metal they could use, and so they deployed a few companies of troops and, in RWBY's case, a handful of commando squads.

RWBY was waiting for Marcus Vahlen to show up, the leader of the insurrection. He had a habit of leading ambushes on civilian convoys, hoping to gut the capital city's supplies. RWBY had been waiting for 4 days, with nothing to show for it. They had been rained on for most of it, but today they had the pleasure of experiencing a sandstorm. It hadn't hit yet, but estimates put it at about 30 minutes away.

"These suits can withstand a sandstorm right?" Yang breached the radio silence, dying to talk to someone, anyone.  
"If they can't, the garrison is too far away for us to be picked up in time." Blake said, looking down her scope at the road, the same way she had for the last 4 days.  
"Sandstorms are pretty new for us though. Kind of exciting, right?" Yang tried again, hoping for a substantial conversation.  
"Six." Ruby warned, trying to get her to quiet down.  
Yang surrendered, crawling next to her black and purple clad sister, looking down her own sniper scope.  
"Convoy's coming." Blake said, causing Weiss and Ruby to crawl alongside them, snipers out as well.  
The squad had a solid defensive position set up, among the broken down ruins of an old stone structure. They had an E-WEB Heavy Repeating Blaster set up, under camouflage of course. Blake had insisted on bringing the extra firepower in case things got hot. They had a sheer cliff face to their back, so unfortunately they didn't exactly have anywhere to fall back to, besides the ruins. The road was in a valley, giving them an easy firing lane. The hill on the other side was covered in trees, which would make the route scenic, if it wasn't in a warzone.  
"Do you guys feel bad about using civilians as bait?" Weiss said, shocking Yang with the question. Not because of the question, but because she was breaching radio silence at all to ask a question.

"No, for two reasons." Ruby replied, adjusting her sights as she trained them on the convoy.  
"One, we didn't make them take this route. They do it all the time and they're too stupid to figure out another way to go."  
She paused a second, as if weighing the words on her tongue, seeing if they were how she wanted to proceed.  
"Two, if they didn't want to be involved in a war they should have compromised with the insurrectionists before it got to this point."  
"Or they could have gotten off world when it came to war." Blake chimed in.  
"I don't know how easy that would have been, these people are poor, just miners and farmers." Weiss responded, slowly pulling the camouflage tarp off the E-WEB before getting on the ground with her sniper out like the rest of her team.  
"Easier than us getting off of Kamino." Ruby fired back, ending the conversation.

The lead truck of the convoy exploded in a fireball, bringing the rest of the convoy to a halt. Laser fire began to pepper the rest of the trucks from the hill across from the squad, and from the ditch closest to the bluff, curiously enough.  
"Do you think they have a tunnel network to get around? We would have seen them get to that ditch otherwise." Blake asked, clearly disturbed by the fact that untrained rebels had gone unnoticed by the commandos.  
"Intel said there weren't any tunnels." Ruby said, scanning the ambush for Marcus.  
"Intel couldn't add 2 and 2 together if they had a fucking calculator." Yang retorted, watching the civilians get cut down.

It was a massacre. The rebels weren't doing this just to take supplies from the capital. They were sending a message now. And Marcus wasn't there.

"What are the fucking odds he doesn't show." Ruby grumbled to herself, angry that the squad was wasting time on this cesspit planet.  
"Found him! In front of the burning truck!" Blake called out, Yang snapping her crosshair onto Marcus' chest. He was a tall, muscular man wearing a makeshift soldiers uniform, shouting out orders as his men continued to kill unarmed civilians.  
"Take take take." Ruby called out, as four shots rang out from the hillside. Two of them entered his chest, and the other two snapped his head back, blood spraying the air as he fell down.

The rebels began to scatter to find cover from the snipers as their leader layed dead in his own blood.

"RWBY to Garrison, mission complete. Requesting evac at our position, over." Ruby radioed for their ride out, giving Yang the hope that soon they would be in a more exciting mission.  
"This is Garrison, evac has been dispatched. That storm might delay them, so sit tight. Garrison out."

A laser snapped about 3 meters over the heads of the commandos, and another hit a bush to their right.  
"Weiss, return fire on the E-WEB. Show these assholes they don't want this fight. Everyone else, open up." Ruby commanded as she snapped the scope and barrel off her DC-17, using it as an automatic rifle.  
Weiss began to lay rounds into the ambush sight, knowing that there were no civilians left to even be worried about hitting.

"We got a lot of insurrectionists swarming the road Sarge." Yang called out, firing short bursts into rebels.  
"I think that tunnel theory may have been accurate Seventy." Ruby responded, shifting positions. The rebels were starting to zero in on her location. She didn't want to say it out loud, but there was a _lot_ of the rebels.

All four commandos looked up as they heard a dull, low thump come from the opposite hill.  
"MORTAR! TAKE COVER!" Ruby yelled as she began to run back to the ruins, the mortar landing 5 meters in front of where the squad had been to kill Marcus.  
"WEISS GET OFF THAT E-WEB!" Weiss didn't have to be told twice, sprinting back to the ruins with the rest of the squad. Yang's heart was pounding now, because now she was in a real firefight. It had been at least a week since they had been in an honest firefight.

The E-WEB exploded a minute later, as the mortars got closer. Yang was behind a fallen pillar, feeling her teeth rattle as the dirt around them got kicked up by mortar fire that becoming more and more accurate by the shot. After about three minutes, it stopped.

Yang poked her head over the pillar, surveying the damage. Most of the trees had been stripped of bark, bushes blown apart completely.  
"Can anyone think of any reason they would stop dropping mortars on us?" She said hesitantly, bringing her rifle to her shoulder.  
"Either they think we're dead, or they're advancing." Weiss responded, sliding a fresh clip into her blaster.

They didn't have to wait for their answer long, as rebels began to run towards them from down the hill. The first one was dropped instantly, and the second one after that, and the third one after that. They were swarming, and Yang had to resist the urge to just start spraying rounds into them, instead relying on her training to fire in bursts, conserving ammo.

The rebels had begun to take cover wherever they could and were firing back on the commandos, a bolt glancing off of Yang's shoulder. She took this as a sign to shift where she was, sprinting to another pile of rubble to hide behind.

"Did we get an ETA on that evac?" She called out as she primed a thermal detonator, lobbing it at where the rebels were coming from.

"Negative Two-Six." Ruby responded curtly, reloading her rifle as a bolt took a chunk off the pillar she was behind.

The laserfire stopped as the wind picked up, causing all the girls to look around and assess their current situation.  
"Take inventory on ammo. Weiss, tell me if there's any close air support available." Ruby ordered, nudging the body of a rebel before discharging a round into their head.

The sandstorm was fully here now, as Yang lost sight of Ruby, who was about 15 meters away from her. Thankfully the helmet automatically cut out all the outside noise, but Yang could _feel_ the sand whipping away at her armor.

"Viper 1-3 is available for close air support boss, want me to patch you through?" Weiss responded from somewhere, her disembodied voice being piped into Yang's helmet.  
"Yes. If they rush us in this storm we're going to need all the help we can get."

"Behind you Yang." Blake said, causing Yang to turn around.  
"You good on ammo Two-Six?" She said, close enough for Yang to actually see, despite the storm trying it's best.  
"Yeah, you need anything?"  
"Nah. Make sure you keep something for yourself. You don't want these guys taking you prisoner."  
Blake moved on to take up position away from Yang. She was right, they had all heard the stories. Death would be much better than what these savages would do to her.

"Contact incoming! They're pushing us!" Weiss yelled, and Yang saw blue streaks of light coming from Weiss' position towards the road.

"Viper 1-3 this is ~ee of team RW~ do you copy?"

Viper 1-3, known by his friends as Elite, adjusted his instruments to try and get the signal to clear up.

"This is Viper 1-3, repeat your last."  
"This is Eight-Three of Commando squad RWBY, I am requesting air support. How Copy?"  
"Solid copy Eight-Three, please send grid coordinates for strike."  
"Requesting fire package Fury in grid location Alpha Alpha Jericho One One Eight. Danger Close."

Viper narrowed his eyes as he began to fly towards the designated location in his _Torrent_.  
"Eight-Three I am low on fuel after flying support for Eight Battalion. Not only that, but you are calling in a Danger Close airstrike in a sandstorm. I will not be able to verify where my rounds are going. Please reaffirm that these coordinates are correct."

There was a few seconds of pause before Eight-Three showed back up in his ear.

"Roger that Viper 1-3. Send fire package Fury at grid location Alpha Alpha Jericho One One Eight, Danger Close."  
"Roger. Danger Close incoming in 30 seconds. Keep your heads down. Viper 1-3 out."

Weiss was not having a good time. Due to the sandstorm obscuring her vision and messing up her sensors, she had ended up having to engage rebels in close quarter combat more than one time. She pulled her gauntlet blade out of a rebel's neck, quickly bringing her rifle up and delivering two shots to another's chest.

"FALL BACK! DANGER CLOSE IN 30 SECONDS!" Weiss heard Ruby shout in her ear, and began to sprint towards the cliff face, getting as far away as the trail up the hill as she could. She felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder, but kept sprinting regardless.

"HEADS DOWN!" Ruby called as the world exploded around them.

Weiss woke up in a daze, her ears ringing as her vision began to settle. The storm had subsided, as she could clearly see Yang bring a brick down into the head of a rebel in front of her.  
Was someone calling her name? She could faintly hear it, but it sounded so quiet, quieter than her own thoughts. Fuck her shoulder hurt, what had happened to her shoulder.

Someone grabbed her and flipped her onto her back, and Weiss instinctively slid her vibroblade out of its housing in her gauntlet, aiming for the neck. Her hand was stopped by another gloved hand, covered in a gauntlet.

"Fuck's sake Weiss, now isn't the time to lose your shit. Evac's here, we're leaving"  
She heard Ruby's voice inside her head, and slowly put together that Ruby was crouching on her chest, holding her fist from plunging a blade into her neck.

"Oh-Four's out of it, I need you two to cover me." She barked out as she grabbed Weiss by her shoulders. Dragging her towards the gunship that Weiss had only just now noticed was hovering over the ground, bay door open, waiting for them to board.  
Her shoulder screamed in pain, resisting the fact that she was being dragged by her injury.

"I know it hurts Weiss but I have to get you out of here. We can fix that la-" Ruby was cut short by a laser round sinking into her chest, knocking her to the ground. She sat up, DC-17 in hand, Anti-Armor attachment on.  
"Motherfuckers!" She yelled out as she emptied the explosive round into the man who shot her 20 meters away, blowing him and three other rebels into dust.

Yang ran over and helped drag Weiss into the gunship, before shooting out into the rebels, covering Blake as she ran towards the ship. A laser round glanced her head, hitting hard enough to almost knock her to the ground, but she recovered and quickly mounted into the gunships bay.

"CLOSE THE DOORS AND GO, WE'RE ALL HERE!" Ruby shouted as she emptied another Anti-Armor round into the rebels.

The gunship began to pull away, and as it rose up, Weiss finally got a good look at the damage Viper 1-3 had delivered onto the hill. Well, it used to be a hill. The ruins were gone completely, the hill a collection of massive craters.

"Mission success. Good work RWBY." Ruby said proudly as she took her helmet off, the door closing, the squad being delivered to safety.

 **A/N: Back for another chapter. It's been far too long since I did one of these. I don't plan on getting back to any form of regular schedule, but I think it'd be good for me to write these, and I enjoy doing it. I've decided to pretty much depart from the storyline Karen Traviss wrote, as that was killing my motivation to write these. Next chapter will feature JNPR more than this one did, but I thought it would be good to keep it all on RWBY for this.**

 **Team RWBY**

 **RC-1183 Ruby, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1104 Weiss, Private**

 **RC-1170 Blake, Private**

 **RC-1126 Yang, Private**

 **Team JNPR**

 **RC-1390 Jaune, Sergeant Rank**

 **RC-1163 Nora, Private**

 **RC-8051 Pyrrha, Private**

 **RC-2223 Ren, Private**

 **Team SSSN**

 **ARC S-11 Sun, Captain Rank**

 **ARC S-07 Scarlet, Lieutenant Rank**

 **ARC S-12 Sage, Sergeant Rank**

 **ARC S-10 Neptune, Lieutenant Rank**

 **Other**

 **Qrow Branwen, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant in the GAR**

 **Taiyang Xiao Long, Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 **Summer Rose. Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 **James Ironwood. Mandalorian Warrior. Former Training Sergeant**

 _Vode An_

 **Heil96, out.**


End file.
